Worst Prisoner Book 3: Fire is life
by emletish
Summary: Aang tries to fix everything wrong with the world. Zuko tries to fix everything wrong with the Fire Nation. Azula tries to control everything. There are mixed results. In book 3: Zuko leaves the Fire Nation Palace to meet up with the Gaang a lot earlier than planned. Gaang focus, Zutara happy ending.
1. The awakening

**The awakening:**

"The lily blooms for those who would enjoy her perfume."

"But the scent of freesias is sweeter," Iroh replied. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Zuko, who had been leaning against the wall in a disgruntled fashion, bend forward to sniff a freesia from the flower display.

"The fragrance of chrysanthemums fills the air."

"But the aroma of the geranium is…"

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Zuko grumbled under his breath, rolling his eyes.

The passphrase exchange had been quite lengthy, but Iroh had finally proven his identity and had been admitted entrance. Their transport over the desert was arranged.

It was so hot and Iroh felt so thirsty.

"Are you sure you won't let me initiate you, nephew?" Iroh asked quietly.

The way he always had to leave Zuko out of these meetings made him uneasy. Zuko always waited outside where he was told, but still. There was a deep well of worry inside Iroh. It whispered that one day he was going to look up and his nephew wouldn't be there.

"I'm sure," Zuko said. "I have no desire to talk about smelly flowers until the end of time."

"We change our passphrases periodically to retain secrecy. It's not always flowers."

He idly wondered what Zuko would call the White Lotus if he couldn't refer to them as the Flower Friends.

"No thanks, Uncle."

"Just consider it again. One day we may need to pass secrets to each other over a distance."

Zuko was still adamant against joining the Flower Friends. Iroh hoped he'd change his mind eventually, but he didn't want to start a squabble in a small space.

"We are hiding together in the same crate," Zuko said, as he fidgeted. "I'd love a little more distance between us, to be honest. It's so cramped here."

It was cramped. Cramped and confining. Iroh's arms were getting pins and needles. He was sore all over. He was thirsty, so thirsty. The heat was terrible, almost as bad as the Fire Nation in the peak of summer. There were some metal clanging sounds, but that didn't make any sense. Suddenly, a ship's distress horn cut through the air. What was a ship doing so far out in the desert…

Iroh woke with a start in the brig of one of Azula's vessels. He was being taken back to the capitol in chains. In a moment of disorientation, he looked around the stark cell. Zuko was not with him. Though it was not unexpected, his heart still sank every time.

Much to Iroh's astonishment, he could hear two familiar voices in the hallway. Two people he thought would never be found on the princess's fleet of ships were haranguing a guard.

"Tell the Fire Lord that justice is coming for him," an icy voice instructed.

"Your name is _justice?"_ came the baffled guard's response.

"No! Fool, it's a metaphor." Pakku huffed, clearly unimpressed that his one-liner hadn't gone down as he planned.

"Huh?"

"He means," Jeong Jeong said, "that eventually the Fire Lord will have to pay for all the harm he has done, spreading devastation and misery to every corner of the world—"

"Ah!" the guard interrupted what would have been a long speech. "You're here for revenge."

"Yes," Pakku said. "Revenge. Glad you're up to speed. Give us the keys now, like a good lad."

Iroh could hear the unmistakable sound of ice forming and cracking, followed quickly by a jangling of metal.

"I am not here for vengeance," Jeong Jeong said in a lamenting tone. "Revenge would only perpetuate the cycle of violence and lead to more senseless destruction from this burning curse that threatens to tear our entire nation asunder and consume the whole world…"

"It's pretty much revenge for me," Pakku cut in abruptly. "You could say…revenge is a dish best served _cold_."

"Ah, I get it! Cold because you're a waterbender." The guard sounded so proud to have made the connection.

"I mourn for our nation," Jeong Jeong muttered, snapping out of his tragic lament.

This was Jeong Jeong's fairly common reaction to interactions with Fire Nation youth. Iroh could almost hear the shaking of his head through the door.

Before Iroh knew it, his two old friends were standing there, ready to take him away.

-0-

Everyone had agreed that it was better if their Grand Lotus was free. Their society needed to regroup and strategise. They may have to come out into the open and finally oppose the Fire Lord on the battlefield. Pakku might get a chance to do some heroics in front of Kanna, and then she'd see he really was serious about changing for the better. She could hardly refuse him if he saved the world.

Or maybe he could die valiantly and heroically in front of her. Then she would weep over him and feel terrible about rebuffing him again.

No, that was foolish.

Pakku didn't want _to die._

He'd never get to kiss Kanna again if he died.

Maybe he could just be sufficiently injured. Injured enough that Kanna would feel for him, and take him into her igloo and nurse him back to health, but _not too injured _that it would prevent kissing her.

Kanna hadn't melted into his arms when he'd shown up at the South. She had frowned, put her hands on her hips, and then put him to work rebuilding the fractured villages that made up their sister tribe. The almost total ruin of their sister tribe had shocked Pakku, but Kanna had just sniffed angrily.

"Well, what did you northerners expect after you abandoned us to be picked off for a hundred years?"

"In fairness, Kanna, you surely can't blame the whole hundred years on me."

"Never your fault, is it?" Kanna had asked, eyebrow raised sceptically and derision dripping from her tone.

She'd reminded him of Sokka then. Pakku hoped Sokka hadn't inherited his tendency to say "whoosh" when he was relaying stories from Kanna as well. Pakku loved Kanna, but some of Sokka's habits were just plain annoying.

Pakku rebuilt their igloos and the retaining walls, fished an extravagantly large supply from the oceans to feed them all. He'd built connecting tunnels and pathways to the other scattered villages, and created defences there as well. He'd sent word north that their passage had been a safe one. Sometime later, Yugoda and a team of healers had arrived.

Yugoda got a much warmer welcome than Pakku had. Kanna hugged her old friend. The two of them would stay up late, catching up on lost time, drinking ice-wine. They cackled like witches, sharing stories about the shenanigans of their grandchildren. Yugoda had been quickly forgiven for not helping out the South for one hundred years.

"Oh, Kanna, I just wish I knew you had been down here all this time," she'd said simply, when Kanna had asked why she had come now.

And that was that. All was forgiven.

It didn't seem fair.

Pakku tried to copy Yugoda's answer when the subject came up again. Kanna was clearly still furious that he had "never come looking for her". Truthfully he had, but Pakku had been too prideful to admit this in the middle of their argument. It felt too much like grovelling. It brought up too many bad memories.

He remembered it clearly though. He'd been young and in love and an idiot. After he'd given her the betrothal necklace, they had started being intimate together. It was against the rules, but Kanna had wanted to, and Pakku hadn't protested. He had, in fact, done the opposite of protesting. She'd come to the house he was building for them. Several rooms were already finished, and Kanna wanted to try them all. One day, she mentioned children. Pakku remembered wishing that they had a boy, so he could teach his son to be a master bender like his papa.

"But I'm sure you'd love having a daughter too?" Kanna had asked.

The real answer was "not as much", but Pakku had known this answer would get him kicked out of the furs. He had paused. This had been a mistake. Kanna had seemed to read the uneasy silence and knew exactly what he was thinking. She'd pulled herself out of the furs.

"I'm going," she'd said snippily, and left.

He'd assumed she meant going back to her parents' house. He remembered thinking dismissively that she was just having a "women's emotional time" the morning she'd disappeared.

Then he'd found her note, asking him to come find her if he changed his mind. Pakku hadn't wanted to acknowledge her foolishness. He wasn't changing his mind. Girls weren't equal to boys. Girls were girls and boys were boys, and that's just how it was. Pakku certainly hadn't wanted to leave his home and run away into the unknown. No, he'd decided. He was going to wait for Kanna to change her mind and come back to him.

He'd assumed she wouldn't get too far. The world was harsh and cold and she had been a gentle girl back then. He was sure she would come back remorseful after a terrible time on the ice fields. Then he would take her in and warm her up and they would leave all this stupidity behind them.

His resolve didn't last.

He'd worried about her, all alone on the ice. He had set out to find her, but he had dithered long enough for Kanna to disappear without a trace. He had searched hopefully, then searched anxiously, then searched the heartbroken, forlorn search of a desperate man battling the slowly dawning horror occurring in his brain that _anything _can happen on the ice. There were polar geese and glaciers and frostbite and orcas … and Kanna had been _all alone_.

He'd blamed himself. Girls were too weak to manage on the ice. They were delicate and needed to be protected, but he had let his wounded pride get in the way of doing his duty by Kanna. He was meant to have looked after her, even when she was having her contrary female moods. He should have looked the minute he knew she was gone.

Their fight was probably his fault too somehow because he was no good with girls and always said the wrong things, and all his mates had joked that it was a miracle she'd agreed to marry him in the first place. He was a master bender who'd lost his girl to the ice – that's how bad he was with girls.

He'd never find anyone who'd want to marry him again.

Frozen hell, he'd never want to marry anyone else.

So he had not given up. (Though he had decided that this was why it was better if he and Kanna just had sons, because females were an inexplicable mystery and he would never understand them. If he was in charge of raising one, he was sure he would screw it up somehow.)

As time passed, he even stopped caring about the sons. The fight was stupid and all he had needed was for Kanna to come home. He would have had a thousand daughters with her if that's what she wanted. He would have just…built a second home to escape to when their moon-time all came upon them at once. He was a brave warrior, but he wasn't dealing with a thousand hormonal teenage girls all at once. He would be the worst person for this role.

It's not like it would have been unheard of. His own father used to "go hunting" for a week when his sister was in her moods. Pakku had decided that's what he would also have to do.

For three weeks out of four, he would have done his best to be a good papa to his small army of hormonal girls, and for the other week, he'd provide them with a mountain of meat and leave… and surely that was a fair compromise. He and Kanna could have had one son and a thousand daughters, and he would have been content. (He would have cried and grovelled all of this by that point, if he'd found Kanna on the ice fields).

He'd searched for her until a terrible storm closed in. It would have been hard for a battle-worn warrior to survive, let alone a non-bending girl. Still, he'd wanted to go out searching afterwards, but his own mother had looked at him with the saddest eyes and sat him down by the fire. She'd put an ice-wine in his hands and said what everyone was thinking.

"She's not there anymore, lad. But she's with the spirits now. And there'd be no more hurt or pain."

Pakku drank steadily for many months, had several bouts of drunkenly destroying the house he had built for her, and then slowly repairing it, _just in case_. Their half-finished home became a shrine to what might have been. So he had finished it, moved into it, and sat with his misery ever since.

He'd lost the love of his life to the ice because she'd foolishly thought girls were as capable as boys. He'd resolved to never let that happen to another young girl. He'd remind them of their place, and in doing so keep them safe. He'd resolved to never love anything or anyone as intensely as he had loved Kanna ever again.

These resolutions he had kept.

But it had seemed sad and foolish and pathetic now with Kanna standing alive and well in front of him, hands on her hips and a cross look on her face. He hadn't wanted to say, "I cried into my ice-wine every night for a least ten years over you!"

No, Yugoda's answer was by far a lot more dignified.

"Well, I had no idea you were here. If I had known you were here, and you were living in this lamentable and degrading condition, I would have set sail immediately."

"So, you have come now only to help me?" Kanna had said, and fluttered her eyelashes.

In hindsight, he should have known this was a trap. He was always walking into these with Kanna.

"Oh yes. To help you, I would do anything."

He was very awkward about expressing his feelings, but for Kanna, he was really _trying._ Some of the other healers thought his devotion to her was sweet. One of them had even helped him write a poem for her. Women were meant to like poems.

He had pulled it from his pocket and began:

"_Kanna, my love for you is deeper than the oceans_

_My devotion stronger than the tides,_

_You give me so many emotions…"_

"Let me stop you right there," Kanna had said, holding up her hand.

He had been momentarily relieved. He was terrible at poetry. However, this relief did not last long. She was angry at him again.

"So you are saying that _you, _Master Pakku, a man and master bender of the North who is close friends with the chief, had the means, strength and ability to help the Southern Water Tribe. Instead, you idly allowed the South to be decimated over many decades. However, you've come riding along on your high-polardog now to save the day because I still give you…_emotions_?"

"Eeerrrrr…"

"We endured raid after raid. We saw all our waterbenders dragged away. My _daughter_—" Her voice had cracked and she had harshly turned away from him, inhaling deeply. It had sounded almost like she was choking back a sob.

He had wanted to comfort her, but he'd had no idea how.

When she'd turned back, there was an implacable tundra in her eyes. "We saw our city crumble. We had to scramble to survive. I wrote to you every full moon for ten years! Yet, despite the hundreds of requests for help we sent your way…we received nothing. No, worse than nothing! Sometimes these requests were followed by a Fire Nation raid!"

"But I never got your—"

"And you are only here now, not because it was the right thing to do, but because you hoped I would fall into your arms again?"

He had hoped that. Kanna had seen right through him. There had been no way to salvage the conversation. He had tried anyway, but pointing out that he had never gotten her letters hadn't helped. He'd tried back-tracking frantically and asking what he could do to make it up to her.

"You can start by doing things because it is the right thing to do, not because you think there is a reward in it for you," she had said flatly, and stomped away from him.

Pakku, who was trying much harder to listen to the women around him, had taken her words to heart.

Her words were why he was storming this Fire Nation ship in the middle of the night. Rescuing Iroh needed skill and finesse. It would require the element of surprise and a master waterbender. They could use the full moon and the cover of darkness. They could play into all the unspoken, unconscious fears of the Fire Nation: the dark, the cold, the possibility of gigantic, spirit blob-monsters.

It was a dangerous mission. Pakku thought of all the men he had trained. All younger than him. All with more to live for. Taking the risk himself was the right thing to do. Kanna had softened towards him when she found out what he had to do. She'd wished him luck sincerely when he'd bidden her farewell. And she'd finally told him why she'd left so abruptly.

Pakku was going to have to live with that.

Well, at least it explained why he had felt so grandfatherly towards Katara. Perhaps a part of him had somehow _known._

Pakku had been willing to go alone, yet one firebending master and High Lotus had been exceptionally bad-tempered and obstinate about accompanying him.

Pakku had never met anyone, not in his entire life, who was grumpier about being a master bender than Jeong Jeong. If Pakku never heard the phrase _burning curse_ again, it would be too soon. Pakku had his own emotional turmoil to be getting on with. He didn't have the time or the inclination to deal with the firebender's inconvenient and ongoing and extremely vocal existential crisis.

On the night of the full moon, a team of agents and the eternally belligerent Jeong Jeong had helped him subdue everyone aboard the ship and break into the brig. Pakku had planned for lots of obstacles, but he had not foreseen that the biggest obstacle in _Operation: Rescue Iroh_ would be Iroh himself.

Pakku had never been good at persuasion. He'd never needed to be. Mastering waterbending at a young age meant that he could let his waterwhips do the talking for him.

Still, he thought it shouldn't be _this hard_ to convince someone to leave a prison cell! This was the second time he had needed this skill. He had not gotten any better at it with the passage of time.

"Thank you so much for dropping in, old friends, but I am perfectly comfortable here," Iroh said mildly, with a pass of his hands around the cell. The sound of his chains jangling was disconcertingly cheerful, much like Iroh himself.

"You have manacles on your wrists," Pakku stated bluntly.

"I've become accustomed to them."

Jeong Jeong clicked his tongue and stared at Iroh for a long moment. "I certainly hope you are not being this stubborn because you are hoping you will be locked in the round tower—"

"What's the round tower?" Pakku cut in.

"The prison closest to the capital," Jeong Jeong snapped, clearly impatient with Pakku for not knowing, with Iroh for not going, and with life in general. "I think our friend is stupidly planning on waiting there in case his foolish boy comes looking for him."

Iroh shifted and looked slightly embarrassed.

"You always were a fool when it came to that boy," Jeong Jeong said. "You are letting your sentimentality blind you."

"I need to know he is alright."

"He's alright enough to betray you, Iroh," Pakku said flatly.

The boy had obviously thrown his uncle under the ice-barge. That was why Iroh was here, and he was not.

"He wouldn't," Iroh corrected, clearly not liking anyone speaking ill of his nephew. He turned to Jeong Jeong. "I need to speak with him."

"Why don't you simply send him messages in our code," Jeong Jeong suggested evenly, like he thought Iroh had become slow witted during his imprisonment. "It's never been cracked. That would be much safer."

"I never trained him in our code." Iroh confessed, definitely sounding embarrassed now.

"Did you get my last missive after I met him, when I said it should be one of your top priorities?"

"Zuko can be…stubborn," Iroh said, and smiled fondly like this was something he liked about his nephew.

Had Iroh actually encouraged that spectacular level of stubbornness in the lad? Pakku was sure he would have never been so indulgent if he had been with Kanna to raise… he was sure his imaginary son and a thousand daughters would have minded him much better. They would have respected their elders and never been so bull-shark headed.

Iroh's nephew was beyond bull-shark headed. He was a disaster boy who never listened to anyone with the good sense enough to tell him to get out of the way of oncoming disaster. No, Zuko was the sort of idiot child who would stand on the ice-fields, smirking while bleeding profusely and swaying on his feet, and saying "Is that your best shot?" to Kuruk, who was easily three times his size, and had small children of his own and occasionally expressed consternation about repeatedly beating up a mouthy teenager. Then Kuruk would look askance at Pakku, as if to say, "Do I really have to hit him again, sir? Shouldn't we just wait five seconds?"

Pakku didn't think that boy had ever needed any encouragement on the stubbornness front. Next to him, Jeong Jeong was frowning in agreement. Iroh became aware of Jeong Jeong and Pakku's identical frowns, and had the good sense to go slightly red.

"He doesn't like being told what to do," Iroh explained. "He doesn't always cooperate."

"He did as I said, and I only needed to be honest with him," Jeong Jeong said bluntly, casting aspersions on Iroh's style of … Pakku didn't know if it could be called _parenting._ Teenage-herding? Vaguely trying to usher an unpredictable youngster in the right direction seemed more apt.

"He also obeyed me," Pakku chimed in.

"You broke his wrist and used the threat of execution to make him obey," Iroh said, and there was a coldness to his stare. "Threats make people very cooperative."

Pakku met Iroh's gaze. The temperature felt like it was dropping by several degrees. There was something ferocious behind Iroh's eyes that he kept carefully reined in behind a veneer of amiability, but Pakku caught a glimpse of it. As they had travelled through the outer islands, Pakku had overheard people in the Fire Nation gossiping that it would be a mistake to encage and enrage a dragon. Pakku suddenly understood why Iroh had been so respected as a military leader, why the name the Dragon of the West was still spoken with a mix of fear and awe.

Iroh was angry at him. Perhaps Pakku should have been worried, but he was old and cantankerous and defensive. He didn't like being judged by a man who, while he may have been a famed general in control of thousands, had been completely unable to wrangle one teenager into eating his vegetables, minding his manners and learning his lessons.

Even so, Iroh was still right about one thing. Threats made people cooperative…

They needed to get their ungrateful Grand Lotus off the ship for their escape plan to work. It would be stupid to threaten an enraged dragon, but there was nothing else for it. In for a snowball, in for an iceberg. Iroh was already furious at him and Pakku had already dug this far down.

"Iroh, if you don't come now, I will take the rare white dragon bush tea we brought for you to celebrate your freedom and I will soak it all…in seawater," Pakku threatened.

"You wouldn't! That tea is almost priceless!"

"I won't even try to drink it. I'll just splash seawater all over it." Pakku used his bending to rock the ship and enhance his point.

"How can a member of the White Lotus say something so horrible?"

Iroh came with them.

-0-

Aang couldn't sleep. The hollow and painful ache in his back was keeping him awake.

Well, it wasn't _only that_ – if he was being honest with himself.

Being shot with lightning was really painful, but more painful and disturbing than the lightning wound between his shoulders was a cold realisation. If Aang had just stayed and listened to the guru, he could have mastered the Avatar State. Then everything that had happened in the catacombs would have gone differently.

Aang had nearly opened the final chakra. He'd been so close, but he'd chosen Katara over mastering the Avatar State. Now the chance to control it, to never again accidentally hurt someone with it, to use it to save the world …that chance was gone forever.

Aang thought he was going to do whatever it took to master the Avatar State. But when Guru Pathik talked about giving Katara up, he remembered the monks saying Gyasto had to leave him _all alone_ if he was ever going to become a good Avatar.

Aang hated being alone.

The price was too high and he didn't want to pay it.

So, instead, he paid with Ba Sing Se lost to the Fire Nation. He'd paid with failing the world. He'd paid with losing his friend.

Aang had probably gotten Zuko killed.

Sure, no one was _saying_ it, and no one was _blaming_ him… but he remembered what Sokka had said about why Azula had never told anyone about finding Zuko alive. He remembered how Katara's voice had broken, how she had turned away and been unable to look at him when she talked about how she had to choose between them and she had to leave their friend behind.

They didn't need to _say_ it. Aang blamed himself anyway.

Guilt squirmed in his guts. He had actually _wanted_ this not too long ago. He didn't want Zuko to be hurt. He'd never wanted that. But he had wanted the other boy…not around. He had wanted Katara all to himself. He had wanted her to choose him over Zuko.

To Aang's eternal shame, she had. She hadn't chosen him because she loved him like a boyfriend, but she'd chosen him because he was the Avatar and he was meant to save the world.

Aang wasn't even a very good Avatar.

_World-failing, friend-killing Aang: the worst Avatar ever!_ That was how he was going to be remembered.

Avatar Kyoshi might have wished to be remembered differently too. She could have said that she only broke apart continents to make her own private island _one time, _and she never intended to kill anyone_. _But Aang was beginning to understand that Avatars were never judged by their intentions, only on their results.

Aang always tried to be optimistic, but even he had to admit his results weren't that great.

-0-

Toph wasn't a softie, thank you very much. She didn't go in for these healing herbs, sponge baths and let me kiss your boo boos better.

Pah!

Toph always thought that needing help meant you were weak, but now she realised that she'd been wrong. Aang needed help, not because he was weak, but because he'd been shot by a psychotic gremlin!

So now Toph was tending Aang and helping Katara. Toph always carried her own weight. She'd always thought it better if everyone carried their own weight. Then she realised that Katara was carrying approximately eighty-four dudes worth of weight. Toph didn't want her shouldering all that alone.

Toph had surprised herself with just how much she wanted to help them. Katara didn't even need to ask her – she'd _volunteered!_ She'd volunteered because Katara obviously needed somebody to help her and Zuko wasn't here, and the Water Tribe men were incredibly _hopeless_ on the "helping Katara" front.

Katara shouldn't get used to it. Toph certainly wasn't going to make a habit of volunteering to help. But it was weird seeing Sugar without Spice, and Katara was so sad and angry lately. She was always snapping at her dad, and Toph liked Daddy Muscles. It wasn't his fault that everything had gone sideways in Ba Sing Se. Still, it wasn't Katara's fault either. Katara had just lost her favourite person, and Toph was trying to take her mind off it. Even Sokka hadn't known what to do or say, aside from trying to be "optimistic". It didn't suit him at all. Not knowing what had happened to their grumpiest friend was hard on everyone.

Sokka had completely backed away from his murderingly-murderous-psychotic-gremlin-sister theory. He now said anything could have happened and Zuko would have easily ninja-sliced out of that situation. Toph could tell he was lying. She normally loved to say, "I can tell you're lying" in a singsong voice, but for once she refrained.

There was no point dwelling on things she couldn't do anything to change. She concentrated on the things she could _do something _about, and right now that was Aang.

There was something really wrong with Aang lately. It was more than just being shot by lightning and his persistent bad mood. (Though, obviously, neither of those two things helped.) Toph straight away noticed that he felt weirdly hot. At first Katara assumed he had a fever. She was worried about infection, but Toph knew it was something else. She could just tell.

"Whatever is wrong with him," Toph said, "it's not something _normal_ like a fever. It's something real weird."

Aang got a bit anxious when she loudly declared this. To be fair to him, her tone wasn't exactly what anyone would call reassuring. His anxiety was understandable.

"What do you think is wrong with me?" he asked.

"I dunno how to say it, Twinkletoes, but you're hot like Zuko was."

The past tense in that sentence hurt everyone in the room.

"I didn't mean hot in the I'm-so-sexy-I-give-disaster-boys-like-Jet-their-bisexual-awakening type hot," Toph clarified, trying to joke and breeze past that hurt moment. "The other hot. It feels like you're a firebender now."

"But I can't be!" Aang sounded alarmed and irate. His heart was thumping loudly. "I mean, there's _no way._"

"This is just a guess, but maybe whatever Zuko did, it flicked your firebending switch, or whatever. You always could firebend…maybe he just gave your firebending a shove forward," she said with a shrug.

"I don't have bending switches!"

"No one is saying you do," Katara said, trying to calm him down.

"I'm saying it," Toph said bluntly.

"I don't want any more scary bending coming out of me that I can't control!" Aang yelled.

The flames on the wall sconce rose higher with his temper, just to prove Toph's point for her. Aang looked at the flames in dismay.

"That could have been the wind," Katara said after a long pause. She was always trying to make it better for Aang, even now.

"Right, the wind," he agreed uncertainly.

"But _it wasn't_," Toph felt compelled to point out.

"Maybe it was," Aang snapped back, preferring to live in soft, squishy denial rather than face hard reality. "Maybe you're wrong and I just have a fever."

"Yeah, but you actually don't!" Toph was getting frustrated now. She didn't see how denying the bleeding obvious was helping anyone. "I'm right. Just see if I'm not."

She left the room of delusions.

So what if she sometimes wanted to help people now?

It would be much better, all round, if those same people wanted to help themselves!

-0-

A crack of lightning woke Hakoda up with a start.

The storm was one of the worst he had ever seen. They had strayed into the waters near a Fire Nation outpost south of Full Moon Bay. All Fire Nation waters, colonies included, were currently beset by a seemingly endless typhoon. Even the straits near their far-flung outposts and territories had been treacherous since the siege of the North.

Hakoda was not a superstitious man, but it did seem like the Ocean Spirit had a huge grudge against the Fire Nation. The storms were La's way of saying, "Screw this nation and every scrap of land they claim."

The ship was lurching wildly. Hakoda went to check on the children, in case they needed reassurance. He found Sokka and Toph sound asleep, and Aang tossing restlessly. Katara's bed was empty.

Panic rushed through him.

He scrambled about the ship searching for her. He found her trying to wrangle the bison onto the top deck in the middle of a storm. Appa, showing much more common sense than his daughter, was very reluctant to be wrangled stormwards.

Hakoda remembered when a terrible illness had swept through their tribe during the winter after Kya's death. Still grieving, he'd had to be both mother and father to his frightened and sick children. He'd had to provide for them during a blizzard, sponge their foreheads, and clean them up when they had soiled themselves. For two whole weeks, he had barely slept. He had dedicated himself entirely to his family and pulled them through the crisis. He thought that was the hardest test of fatherhood he'd ever faced, until this night.

Tonight, he was trying to make his fifteen-year-old daughter see reason. Reasoning with a teenage girl in the middle of a typhoon – this was the _real test_ of fatherhood.

Tui and La, he was failing at it.

Katara knew they were closer to Ba Sing Se than they'd been in a while. She stood in the rain and yelled at him that she was a capable waterbender. She would be back in the morning.

"No! It is too dangerous Katara! I can't lose you kids again!"

He took her pack of supplies and threw them back down the stairs into the safety of the ship. He hoped his daughter would follow her belongings. This was not his proudest moment in the fatherhood test, to be sure.

"You didn't lose us," she muttered darkly. "You left us."

"Katara, please understand, I can't let you go and put yourself in harm's way, especially when there's no point to it. You keep saying 'you just need to know what happened'. _The city has fallen. _That's what happened! There's nothing there but death and destruction now. There's no point in going back."

He wasn't touching the you-left-us conversation bomb. He could already tell that conversation was going to explode in his face even more than this one was exploding.

"The point is to get our friend back!"

"I will not have you risk your life for a firebender!"

"His name is Zuko!" she snapped, like him getting the firebender's name wrong was the _whole point_ of their argument.

Hakoda wished it was. Names were easy.

"I'm sure _Zuko _will be very glad to go back to his people," he said. "His sister led the invasion. He'll be fine. He's with his family now."

This was clearly the wrong thing to say.

"His family are awful!" Katara wailed.

True. She'd get no argument from Hakoda on that one.

"Why is it so important for you to go back for a firebender?" he asked.

He realised he didn't actually know that much about Zuko. He should probably find out more, given that both his children seemed inexplicably fond of the firebender. (The Fire Lord's only son. Tui and La have mercy!)

Bato had described a disgruntled bundle of pointy elbows and dangerous knees, with a bad attitude and even worse language. Hakoda knew a great deal about Fire Lord Ozai's tactics. He had heard much about the lightning princess. But no one had talked much about the banished prince until recently. Even then, it was mostly to make cannibalistic jokes at the Water Tribe's expense.

This annoyed Hakoda.

Everyone thought they were cannibals because of this kid!

Truthfully, he had never forbidden his children from making friends with firebenders – mostly because he didn't think he _had_ to. It had never occurred to him to say, "Kids, if you find a lost firebender, don't pat it, feed it, and bring it on adventures with you." He was now regretting this oversight.

He believed in facing life as it really was, not as he'd like it to be. His son and daughter had made friends with a firebender. He had to live with that. He didn't understand this friendship at all, but that didn't mean it wasn't real. At least, from the sounds of things, the boy had a shred of decency in him. That was more than you could say for most firebenders.

"We need him," Katara said levelly after a long moment. "If Aang is ever going to learn firebending, he'll need a teacher."

She was trying to sound practical. She was trying to sound _like Sokka_.

"There's another reason, Katara," he said flatly. It was a logical reason, but it wasn't the real reason. It didn't explain why she was so frantic.

"He saved us, Aang and me. I thought Aang was dying, but Zuko did something. Then he stayed behind with his uncle to cover our exit, even though he knows full well how terrible his sister is." She exhaled slowly, like she was trying to steady herself. "I can't just _leave him_ behind, Dad." Her eyes shone. "Maybe it's easy for you to leave people behind, but _I can't."_

Ah. They were getting to the crux of the issue. When he'd left two years ago, his children had taken it hard. At the time, he had worried more about Sokka, who had seemed so forlorn at being left behind when he was so desperate to prove himself a man. Katara had said she understood. But Hakoda now saw that understanding his choice didn't stop her from feeling angry. There was nothing for it but to let her be angry. She could let it out and he would listen.

"Katara," he said, pulling her close. "I left you and Sokka because I love you so much. I wanted a better world for you. But every night I would miss you both so much it would ache."

"We want a better world too. That's why we left the South." She hugged him back. "It was hard to leave, but we had to keep Aang safe. I'd do anything to protect the people who are important to me."

"I know exactly how that feels."

His heart was bursting with pride at all his children had done to help Aang, but the selfish part of him wished that they had stayed home with their grandmother and stayed out of the war. They were too young and too important to him, and he hated the fact that it was _his children,_ his family, that was constantly in danger. He squeezed her tighter, as if a hug could keep her safe.

"I'm so glad you understand why I have to go back." Katara said into the hug.

What?

Go back?

He had never agreed to that!

He repressed his initial, churlish response. That could only lead to more shouting in the rain. Instead, he tried to be calm and reasonable.

"If you really wanted to do right by your firebe…your _friend_," he corrected, even though it meant he had to acknowledge the terrible and inconvenient friendship, "you would stay here."

His daughter jerked away from him. "How is abandoning a friend to the Fire Nation doing right by him, Dad?"

He could have pointed out that the boy was Fire Nation. He wasn't being abandoned to them. _He was them_. But he realised this would not be helpful. "You say he sacrificed himself to save you and Aang. Perhaps the best way to honour his sacrifice is to _stay saved._ It sounds like your friend wanted you and Aang to be safe."

Hakoda had no idea what a firebender would or wouldn't want, but he seemed to have guessed correctly, because Katara nodded sadly like she agreed. It finally looked like she was seeing reason. She just needed a little further nudge in the right direction. (Hopefully, that direction would be inside the ship where it was safe and warm.)

"Besides, Aang needs you too," he reminded her. "He was making some noises when I walked past. I think he might be in pain. He'll need you to heal him again soon."

This comment was not entirely true. It was more of a metaphorical shove, not a gentle nudge, but Hakoda knew it would work

"Oh, Aang!"

She ran past him and down the stairs to tend her friend.

Finally, reason had prevailed.

-0-

Zuko hated all the jokes about being eaten. Mentioning it was the surest path to upsetting him. It was the one jab that always made him rise to the bait, so Azula had teased him about it relentlessly on the ship and made many comments about his oh-so-precious Water Tribe peasants.

She was still mulling over what to do about _them._ But they hadn't shown any interest in snatching her brother, despite that moist hussy claiming to see him as family. Clearly, they cut their losses and ditched him. Azula teased him about that too. She needed to remind him of his loyalties. She was his family, not a group of filthy peasants. Zuko had to learn that, to them, he was forgettable and disposable. At least Azula had a use for him. It was a harsh lesson, but it was true and it was for his own good.

Their father had always been right. Trust was for fools. Zuko had always been a fool. Despite being clearly abandoned by them, he was very protective of his mangy, soggy peasants and loathed anyone saying bad things about them. Her digs about cannibalism had always gotten the most amusing reactions.

One morning, Azula loudly assumed the reason why Zuko wore such a big coat was because he was literally covered head-to-toe in bite marks. He got so annoyed with her that he took off all his layers to prove her wrong. Mai blushed the most hilarious shade of mortified scarlet and averted her eyes, but Ty Lee was the one to say what Azula was actually thinking.

"Zuko, what _happened_ to you?"

Ty Lee pointed at the small scar on his left shoulder and the faded marks of lacerations on his side. It looked like he'd been shot and at least lightly stabbed at some point during his banishment. Azula felt oddly incensed. No one should get to shoot or stab Zuko but her!

"Did you just point at my scars?" Zuko asked, incredulous and offended. He flushed, embarrassed at having revealed so much. He pulled his shirt hastily back on.

"No?"

"Gah, I can't believe you, Ty Lee. I'd expect that kind of insensitivity from those two" – he pointed at Azula and Mai (who had the gall to look vaguely annoyed) – "but not you!"

He avoided all of them the rest of the day.

Azula was not curious, and certainly not concerned! She wasn't looking for him. She wasn't wasting her time on him. But if Mai and Ty Lee had _chosen_ to search for him, he had been unnaturally good at hiding from them. Still, it was a ship. There were only so many places he could _be._

She wasn't worried.

Azula finally found him on the stern deck, around sunset. He was staring so intensely out at the horizon it looked like he was trying to set the ocean on fire with his eyeballs.

"I believe you now," she said. "The Northern Water Tribe didn't bite you. I'm going to assume it's because you'd be too skinny and gamey."

"Okay."

He wasn't going to say anything else to her, after she'd gone to the effort of finding him and saying something nice.

"Besides," she added, "practicality says they'd eat Uncle first. He'd feed more people."

That got the reaction she was after. Zuko stiffened and made a bitchface at her before he exhaled slowly. He was trying not to look pissed off and sound calm, but Azula saw right through that.

"Has his ship landed safely yet?" he asked.

"It will dock at the capitol in a few days."

Truthfully, she hadn't gotten a progress report from Uncle's ship in several days, and it was bothering her… but Zuko didn't need to know that.

He sighed heavily and dramatically, as if the weight of the ocean was pushing down on him. He didn't bother trying to hide the fact that he was worried about Uncle Fatso and missed his company. That wouldn't go over well with father.

Azula narrowed her eyes. "Don't go doing anything stupid like writing to him or trying to visit him when we get home. They really will get you for treason if you do that. Besides, there's not much point anyway. They say he's lost his marbles."

"You're lying."

"You're used to that by now, surely?" she said with a smile, concealing how troubled she'd been after she'd read the last hawk from the ship.

Apparently, the shock and magnitude of her crushing defeat coupled with Zuko's betrayal had sent his kookiness over the edge. It didn't sound right. His kookiness hadn't seemed crazy in Ba Sing Se. Uncle was many things, but he wasn't a fool. He was playing an angle, she was sure of it.

Father was pleased with her now, but if her "gift" went awry, if Uncle had a stratagem she hadn't foreseen, then father would be displeased … At least she could divert his displeasure to a more convenient target now.

She glanced at her brother, but he was looking at the horizon again. She wondered if he was looking for _them._

He probably was.

Would Zuko have left their family and all the splendour of royal life for some damp wench and her moist associates, just on the flimsy promise of safety and care and not being hurt again?

Something in her guts twisted angrily. She slapped him upside the head a little too hard to be mistaken for the friendly sibling rough housing that she had seen from Ty Lee and her endless array of sisters.

"Ow! What the fuck was that for?"

"Don't swear!" Azula snapped. He knew how much his swearing annoyed her. He did it on purpose, she was sure of it. "And stop moping. You're so gloomy and depressing. You're more of a downer than a vegetarian at a Home Island Barbeque."

"Sorry I can't be more upbeat and jolly for you. I can just pretend the whole being banished for three years, and living as a refugee, and starving in the desert, and being a prisoner of war never happened then if it's more convenient for you."

He was using what Ty Lee had called his "customer service voice". (_Flaming fireflakes,_ a member of the royal family had a customer service voice. The spirit of their grandmother, Her Most Royal Highness Fire Lady Ilah, Jewel of the Outer Islands, Dragon of the East, Wife of Azulon, Mother of Iroh and Ozai, was churning in her urn.)

Azula knew Zuko was being sarcastic, but that didn't stop her from responding as if he had been serious. "Yes, that would be much more convenient on the whole. We don't want to give Father any reason to doubt our story. So just act like you're happy."

"Acting happy won't stop father from hating me, you know."

Suddenly, Zuko sounded like he was the one warning her.

"Father doesn't hate you."

He actually snorted in disbelief. "You didn't read his reply to Chief Arnook."

She actually had. She knew it wouldn't have gone well for her brother… and the damp, sodden bastards had a reputation for barbaric cruelty. If Zuko had been tortured because of what Dad had said, it would explain why he was more bitter than sour-lemon sherbet lately.

She wanted to know something, but she didn't want to _ask. _Asking would look like she _cared,_ and she couldn't be having that. She knew that people who had experienced torture became unpredictable. She didn't like unpredictable…that was all.

"What did they do to you… up there?" she asked.

"It's okay. You don't need to pretend you care Azula."

She didn't care!

How dare he insinuate such a thing!

-0-

Enormous thanks to Boogum who is the very best beta in the world!


	2. the dangerous ladies

Zuko hated his life.

Being trapped on a boat with Azula was the _very worst thing_ that had happened to him. Ever.

Well, maybe it wasn't the _worst _worst, but it was still up there.

It was awkward and weird being with Azula again. She was trying to play lots of mind games, but Zuko was too exhausted to give a crap. He was tired and cold all the time. He still found himself shivering most nights. His inner fire felt much smaller. His bending was even more pathetic now than when his father had banished him all those years ago, but he didn't know how to fix it.

He hoped his uncle would be able to help him once he was back in the Fire Nation. He mulled over different ways to break Uncle out of the various prisons around the capitol. Uncle would probably end up in the round tower. Father would no doubt keep Uncle within convenient bragging distance. Father was the sort of person who would visit a prison just to gloat over the inmates.

So tacky.

Zuko planned to bust Uncle out. The Blue Spirit didn't need bending, so it wouldn't matter that his was fading. He and Uncle would figure his bending out later. They would travel light, and in disguises. They would find his friends and help Aang together. Zuko had no idea where his friends had gone, but they would figure that out later too.

There was a lot of "figure it out later" to this plan, admittedly.

Still, this wasn't the first time Zuko had struggled with his bending. Uncle had always known how to fix it (even if he chose to fix it through nonsense proverbs and endless tea). Uncle always had all the answers, even though Zuko hadn't always cared to listen.

But then Uncle escaped without him.

They got the hawk that morning. Well, Azula had. Zuko broke into her room to read the letter just to know what had really happened. No one would tell him _anything_ about "the great escape", so he'd taken matters into his own hands. The letter explained that a waterbender and a firebender had worked together to free Uncle. Zuko's heart leapt and he thought of Katara. But then he couldn't think of who the firebender with her would be unless it was him – and he was stuck here.

Maybe they really had replaced him at an astonishingly quick speed. Azula said they saw him as replaceable…

No!

Azula always lied.

This was probably the Flower Friends.

Uncle had lots of friends.

Zuko had no one. Not anymore. He'd stupidly gotten used to having people around who cared, and now he was all alone in the world again. His Uncle had vanished. (Just like mother.) His friends were going to replace him with the first random firebender they came across while Zuko was being dragged back to the Fire Nation, but this time with no hope of escape.

It was like being kidnapped all over again.

Zuko realised that he had never really intended to go any of the places he had ended up, but he had been pulled by random chances and dumb-as-shit luck into his banishment, into the forest with Aang and Sokka and Katara, and all the way to Ba Sing Se with his uncle. He had never got to make his own choices. At least Sokka and Uncle had seemed to have his best interests at heart. Now Azula was calling the shots, and Zuko never knew where he stood with her.

She was always making comments about how Zuko needed to stop being "gloomy" and "depressing" all the time. _Gloomy and depressing! _Fuck that! She'd be gloomy and depressing too if she'd lived his life!

Zuko slumped over the rails and looked out gloomily over the sea, feeling depressed. He wasn't really looking for Appa to appear on the horizon anymore. Staring out at the sea was just a habit. He used to find it soothing.

In his weaker moments, he hoped more than dreaded that Katara would come for him. He missed her so much. But that was a stupid thing to want. He didn't want Katara to be in any danger or take dumb risks just for him. He worried constantly that she would anyway and wondered if there was a way he could stop her from being reckless.

No, probably not. Uncle would've used it on him if there was.

It was hypocritical of him to criticize anyone for being reckless, but Katara really would rush into situations heedless of the dangers. She was the sort of girl who would break into Fire Nation prisons for cute Earth Kingdom dudes she'd just met _that morning_, and then get grumpy with Zuko for pointing out all the obvious flaws in this plan.

Zuko hoped that Sokka, with his instincts and his plans and his endless pessimism, would be able to talk her down. The group always did what Sokka thought was best, and Sokka would see the futility of Zuko's situation. It would be far too dangerous for his friends to try and rescue him, and Zuko knew that. He _knew_ that. But still, the way Azula went on about how easily they had ditched him _stung._

He tried not to react whenever she talked about them. He didn't want to give her any _ideas._ Azula kept saying he should forget about them, like they'd forgotten about him, and just be happy he was finally going home, but Zuko wasn't even sure the Fire Nation was home anymore. He'd stupidly made people his home, like an idiot.

_I want you to come with us on Appa. Stay with us. We'll never hurt you. We'll take care of you. We'll make you happy. We want you with us. We can be your new family._

Zuko thought about that a lot.

He loved the Fire Nation, but he'd been away for so long. He'd changed so much. He was different now. Too much _life_ had happened to him. He wasn't that little thirteen-year-old boy anymore.

And he'd have to face his father again.

He shivered, feeling like the cool breeze was blowing right through him.

"Are you cold?" Mai asked dryly from behind him. She appeared at his side.

_Yes. _He'd been nothing but cold for weeks. He hadn't felt warm since he'd given all his heat to Aang.

"No."

"You're shivering," Mai observed with a raise of her eyebrow.

"I do that sometimes."

"Go inside if you're cold."

She rarely showed any feelings, so Zuko wasn't going to fool himself into thinking there was concern in her voice. It wasn't like anyone on this ship actually _cared _about him.

Truthfully, Zuko kind of envied Mai. Everyone always knew how he was feeling all the time. Azula never failed to use it against him. No matter how he tried, he'd never been very good at hiding what he thought or felt. He had to get better at this if he was going to survive back home. Zuko remembered his Uncle's words: _Don't rise to the obvious bait. Don't let your opponent know when they have landed a blow._

Zuko wondered if he could learn how Mai did it. She had such a blank expression all the time. Did she just hide everything she felt so deep that no one could ever guess at it? Or was she like his dad? Did she honestly not feel things?

"Can I ask you something?" he ventured.

"Sure."

"How do you stay so blank and blah all the time?"

"That's rude. You can't just tell a girl she's 'blank' and 'blah' Zuko."

He wrinkled his nose. "See, you said that so flatly. I don't know if you're upset or not."

"Do you think a girl would be happy to be called a blank blah?" There was a faint note of incredulity to her tone.

"Well, no, but…"

"Zuko, you're wrong. I'm ecstatic with joy that you think I'm a blank blah. That is the nicest compliment anyone has ever said."

"Are you being serious or sarcastic?"

"What do you think?"

"I have no idea. I can't read you at all."

Mai smirked and seemed pleased with this. She didn't say anything else, but she didn't move away either.

"So how do you do it?" he asked. "Hide what you're feeling so well."

"Practice."

"Can you teach me?"

"No."

He clenched his fists around the railing. "Why not?"

"You can't learn what I have. You have so many emotions. You really feel...feelings."

"What do you feel?"

"I'm mostly just bored and irritated." Mai turned to go.

"That's rude. You can't just tell a boy he's boring and irritating," Zuko said, copying what she had said earlier and doing his best impression of her flat, emotionless tone.

Mai smirked again. For once, he could read her clearly. She was amused. "Don't stay out too long, Zuko. It's chilly out here."

"The cold doesn't bother me anymore."

"Suit yourself."

-0-

Mai walked briskly back to the room she shared with Ty Lee to collect herself. She still felt it. That stupid little crush she'd had on Azula's older brother had grown into a stupid giant crush in a short space of time.

She was perturbed by their conversation. He'd asked her how to not feel things, or how to hide his feelings. She could have helped him. She _should have_, really. She knew what he was going back to, after all. But Zuko wouldn't be Zuko if he didn't wear his heart on his sleeve. He'd always been honest, and she had always liked that about him. She had been surrounded by fake and phony people her whole life. But Zuko had been real.

She'd first met him when she was seven years old. Her family had just moved back into the Caldera after her father's posting. Azula had taken a liking to her, and they had become fast friends. Her parents had whole-heartedly encouraged the friendship, and Mai had spent heaps of time at the palace with Ty Lee and Azula.

Azula had a temper, and so did Mai. They were both spoiled and indulged and used to getting their own way. Mai had won a game they were playing. Azula had informed Mai that she needed to let Azula win all the time. Mai had told the princess what she thought of that idea. Azula had snatched the game pieces from her hand. She'd scratched Mai's arms as she reached for them. Her nails had been so sharp that they drew blood. Mai wasn't ever sure if it was deliberate or an accident. Both girls had looked at each other in horror as the red blossomed down Mai's arms.

Mai had known, suddenly and with full clarity, why Ty Lee always kow-towed to the princess, even though they were _best friends._ She had fled.

She'd hidden and tried to stop the bleeding. Zuko had found her. She'd seen him around before and they had been introduced, but she'd never really spoken to him. He'd been playing ninjas with his older cousin Lu Ten that afternoon, but he'd heard her crying. He'd crawled into her hiding space under the stairs.

"Hey, it's Mai, right? Are you okay?" He'd scooched close to her and his eyes had widened in alarm. "Oh my goodness. Is that blood?"

"No."

"It _is. _I can see you bleeding!" He had reached into his pockets and emptied out the contents. "Here, I've got something…" He'd taken out a ninja star, three pai sho pieces, a little packet of fire flakes, a shell, a greenish rock, before he finally found what he was looking for: some small bandages and a small pot of army issue burn salve.

"Do you always carry around this much stuff?" Mai had asked, trying not to let her fascination show.

"Azula's my sister, so I've always got a burn salve and at least four bandages on me," he had said with a rueful smile and shrug. "But this isn't a burn. Did she scratch you?"

"Yes."

"She shouldn't do that," he had huffed, fists clenched, clearly furious on her behalf.

"Well, she was angry because I won the game," Mai had said flatly, not sure why she was trying to excuse Azula, but knowing it was what her parents would want her to do.

"Well, she's got to learn not to be such a sore loser. She can't win everything." He had looked at her then and his face had softened. "Here, let me see." He had held out his hands and pointed at her arm.

"It's really bad," Mai had whispered, clutching her arm closer and feeling shy.

"It'll be okay. This should help it feel better quicker."

Zuko had held up the little burn salve. He had smiled, and it had made her feel warm down to her toes. She had held out her arm. He had gently rubbed some cream into the scratches.

"I know it's for burns," he had said, "but they use it in the army for everything, Lu Ten says. He uses it on everything, from bug bites to sunburn. Lu Ten says it's antibacterial … That's meant to be good," Zuko had added, with a little grin. He had wrapped a bandage around her arm and then sat back on his heels, looking at his work. "Okay, you stay here, and I'll go tell Mum what happened."

"You can't tell anyone." Mai had reached out and grabbed him.

"Why not? Someone should stop her. If I told my mum, she'd be in trouble."

"Yeah, but it would be too much fuss."

No fuss. That was what her parents had always wanted. Her parents wouldn't have wanted Mai to make a fuss and get the princess in trouble. Her parents would have wanted her to stay friends with Azula. Mai had told a big lie about her feelings, because she could already tell then that Zuko was the sort of boy who loved to make a fuss. He was a born fuss-maker. A fusspot.

Besides, Azula was normally a really fun friend to have around. Mai usually really liked her. She had told herself that afternoon was just a one-off. If Mai had worn bigger sleeves, it wouldn't have happened.

"Besides, it doesn't even hurt now," Mai had said.

Zuko had made a very sceptical face at her.

"See, they're all better." She had held up her arm, which had stopped bleeding under the bandage. "You did a good job."

Zuko had smiled widely. "Do you want to come play ninjas? Lu Ten says he's going to show me how to throw ninja stars later."

He had been excited, and he didn't care who knew it. He had been honest and genuine and kind. Mai had never met anyone like him.

"I'm good at stars…and knives…and all projectiles," she had replied, blushing. She'd always been proud of her knife-skills, but she'd never boasted before. She'd kept her practice secret from everyone.

"Well, maybe you can show us then? And if Azula tries to scratch you again, we can just throw things at her instead."

Oh, Mai had liked Zuko from that very first afternoon.

-0-

"Ty Lee, can I ask you something?" Zuko asked.

"Sure," Ty Lee said brightly, while remaining in a standing back-bend. Clearly, they were going to have this conversation with one of them looking at the world upside-down.

"How do you get Azula not to play mind games with you?"

Zuko had been watching. He'd noticed that Azula "played" with Ty Lee the least. Once, Azula had even properly smiled at the other girl without a hint of her usual I'm-secretly-plotting-something-unspeakably-terrible smirk. Mai's suggestions about pretending he didn't care weren't going to work all the time. He wanted to know how Ty Lee did it.

"She doesn't play mind games," Ty Lee said airily as she twirled her feet and came out of her pose. "Now that you're here, could you be my counter balance for the thigh-stand arch?"

It seemed like she was trying to change the subject. Zuko wanted to say no and storm off on principle. She wasn't helping him, so why should he help her? However, this seemed like something Azula would think, so he decided to do the opposite.

"Yes she does!" he argued as he got into position. "She's always making these comments and making vague threats, and then she gets this smirk on her face and rubs her hands together like this." Zuko did an impression of Azula's evil-plot face.

"Mmmhhh, I've never seen her do that." Ty Lee climbed on his knees and arched back. They grasped hands and both leaned back to complete the balance. "This is nice. It's like when we were kids. You remember when we used to do this on Ember Island?"

He remembered. He'd been getting into ninjitsu, and acrobatics had seemed like a good thing to know, and he'd been the perfect height and size to support Ty Lee as she experimented with double and aerial poses. Azula had been angry and teased them for wasting their time on stupid acrobatics, but when Ty Lee asked if she wanted to join them for some triple poses, like the three-headed dragon, she'd climbed up eagerly. It had been fun… until Father found out.

Ty Lee was changing the subject again, Zuko realised, and it was working.

"Ty Lee, seriously. How do you get her not to be a gremlin to you?"

"Oooh, now that you're back we can do the hanging butterfly! I haven't been able to practise that one in ages."

"Could you stop changing the subject?"

The boat would arrive home soon. It would not be long before he was on his own with his father and Azula. He really needed to know how not to piss them off. Whatever Ty Lee did worked on Azula. It might work for his dad too. Still, he got into the pose for her.

"That's how I do it," Ty Lee said quietly when she was hanging upside-down as a butterfly. Zuko was holding her up and their heads were close together in this pose. They could speak softly and it wouldn't look weird…well, weirder than it already did.

"Huh?"

"Changing the subject to stuff no one cares about. Pretend I wasn't paying attention. Playing dumb. Nobody ever asks an airhead hard questions."

That made sense. He'd never considered asking Ty Lee about the meaning of life, assuming her answer would be something like 'the colour pink' or 'fluffy things'. No one ever wanted to be mean to her because she was so relentlessly cheerful. Not even Azula wanted to be the jerk who made her lose her smile. Zuko didn't know if it would work for him. No one at home was going to feel protective over him, he knew that much.

"Just play dumb. It'll be easy for you," Ty Lee said gently, before adding, "You're lucky people already think you're stupid."

"They do?"

This was news to him. He wasn't sure if he should be happy about it.

"I mean they think you were stupid enough to get captured and eaten, so yeah."

Zuko groaned loudly in frustration.

"It's not a bad thing," Ty Lee said brightly, before lowering her voice until she was whispering. "Everyone is more forgiving of stupidity than defiance. Confrontations and disagreements make people feel icky. But stupidity from an idiot makes them feel comfortable. They're less likely to think you're trying to pick a fight—"

"I'm never trying to pick a fight."

Fights got picked anyway, but they had never been his intention.

"—and more likely to say to themselves, 'oh, that's just Zuko and he's a moron. He's dumber than two short planks glued together with stupid glue. He's more clueless than a dolphin-turtle wearing kneepads, he's more…"

"It kind feels like you're just slamming me now," Zuko said as he lowered her back down and broke the pose.

"Sorry, but the upside of everyone saying things like that—"

"Everyone is really saying that?"

"Not to your face. At least you won't have to work at convincing people you're an idiot." She smiled consolingly, but this also implied that she really worked at making people think she was a bimbo while secretly being a genius who was smarter than everyone else and it was the great bane of her existence to put so much effort into acting stupid. Oh, what a terrible burden!

It kind of annoyed him a little bit. He didn't like the fact that everyone thought he was an idiot or that Ty Lee was so damn happy about it. Still, she'd told him directly and he had to admit it wasn't the worst advice ever. Playing dumb was a mask he could wear, like pretending he didn't care or being the Blue Spirit. Zuko could see how it worked for Ty Lee. Everyone did think she was an airhead, but she was obviously smarter than she looked.

"Thanks, Ty Lee."

"You're welcome." Then she pointed out something behind him with a wide smile. (Zuko would probably never know how many of her smiles were an act and how many were just her.) "Oh look, it's the gates of Azulon. We're nearly home."

Home.

After three long years, he was home. Once, Zuko had thought finally coming home would make up for _everything _that had happened before.

-0-

It didn't.

-0-

Azula had demanded a fierce pace from her crew, despite the storms and Zuko's bitch-faces and mutterings about safety. They'd made record time back to the Fire Nation. There had been a huge celebration to welcome them, but Zuko had seemed unimpressed with the large crowd which gathered to cheer for them.

"Maybe I'm not a huge fan of your droning crones talking for twenty full minutes about how awesome you are," Zuko grumbled when she'd queried his strange and ungrateful attitude towards the whole royal charade. Azula actually thought Li and Lo had been quite succinct, but even if they had only spoken for twenty seconds, Zuko still would have complained. Complaining melodramatically was his new favourite hobby, closely followed by wistful, audible, irritating sighing.

It was odd. She didn't mind gloomy, listless ennui from Mai, but it didn't _suit_ Zuko at all.

It wasn't how he was meant to _be._

"So grumpy at your own party, Zuzu? You should probably eat something. You're always so bad-tempered when you get hungry."

"I'm not bad-tempered!"

"Tofu is so delicious when it's served cold." Azula smirked as she lifted more of the repellent dish to her lips.

Zuko had become a little paranoid about Father poisoning him. He'd taken to only eating with Azula and only eating what she would eat. As soon as she realised this, she began messing with him. She'd announced an intention to eat a strictly vegetarian diet this morning, just to see his face.

Eating cold tofu was so _worth it._

Azula looked around at the decadent party Father had thrown for them. It was a nice gesture. It would take everyone's mind of the scandal of Uncle escaping...hopefully. She just had to make sure it was a party everyone remembered.

_I wish Mother were here_, the unwanted thought popped into her head so suddenly. Azula squashed it fiercely. She didn't want her Mother, or miss her. But she could acknowledge that Mother had been _good at parties_ in a way that Azula wasn't. Azula needed this party to go well so that everyone would stop speculating about Uncle. That was the only reason she'd had such a ridiculous thought. For once, Mother could have been useful to her.

Still, being good at parties was a skill like any other. If Azula applied herself, she would conquer it like she had every other obstacle in her life.

A royal ball for Azula and Zuko showed that Father still held her in high regard. It showed he had believed her story and would accept Zuko back, if not with good grace, then at least with minimal fuss. They were being distinguished as national heroes, because Father wanted to remind everyone that his children were successful and alive.

Father was obviously pleased with both of them, even if he could not be there himself. Father was currently preoccupied with punishing the incompetent bilge-rats from the ship transporting Uncle. Azula understood that had to take precedence over his children.

Zuko should be happy, but he seemed even more miserable now they were home. If her idiot brother insisted on being miserable when Azula had given him everything he wanted on a silver platter, then he could suffer through cold tofu.

"Cold tofu is the worst! How can you eat this?" Zuko grumbled at her as he unenthusiastically popped some in his mouth with an all too familiar resigned sigh.

"It's good for mental clarity. You should have more."

"You must be pretty desperate for mental clarity," Zuko sassed back, momentarily surprising her. "That's your third bowl."

"I heard General Bujing telling a great joke about the Northern Water Tribe serving cold tofu as a side dish for roasted _you. _Would you like to hear it?" Azula wasn't above going for a low blow.

"I'm not hungry anymore," Zuko harrumphed and stomped away. "You even have to ruin food for me, don't you?" he threw over his shoulder as he departed.

Zuko had said the best part of being a treated like royalty again was the food. It was apparently better than starving. 'Better than starving' was a pretty low bar in Azula's mind. Still, at least the constant availability of snacks was something her brother didn't complain about. His constant snacking had caused more than one person on the ship to observe that he needed to be 'fattened up' (This wasn't because he'd become too skinny with all the _starving _he'd been doing that he seemed so nostalgic about. It was presumably because he needed more meat on his bones before the Water Tribes would deign to eat him.)

Since Zuko had gotten back home, he'd been trying his best to convince everyone that the Water Tribes weren't cannibals, to no avail. The more he dramatically insisted that he had never been chomped on, the more Father's friends smiled indulgently and laughed behind their hands. There were many comments about Zuko protesting too much. Azula made it clear to all the nobles at the party that they were free to merrily speculate about Zuko's un-eaten status as much as they liked.

This had backfired.

There were also lots of unfortunate double-entendres about her brother's _physical attributes _and how… _flavoursome_ many giggling girls presumed these would be, but Azula left those alone. Girls she used to go to school with were now tittering about how "delicious" her brother was and saying things like they didn't blame the Water Tribe for wanting "a little nibble", because he was so "yummy".

It was _revolting._

At least Mai had too much class to make those kinds of comments.

Mai's little crush certainly made her more enthusiastic about the task Azula set her and Ty Lee. Her work ethic had improved noticeably now that her job was spying on Zuko. Azula didn't want them to be obvious about spying. They just had to go with him everywhere and _supervise._ Azula wanted them to make sure he didn't say or do anything too stupid, and report back.

Mai was more effective at stopping Zuko's stupidity. It had been on Ty Lee's watch that he had accidentally called their father a moron in public, after all. Zuko was a bit of a loose cannon at public ceremonies and gatherings. People would ask him questions and, like an idiot, he would answer honestly.

Mai had been training him to answer rudely and avoid questions, and this was giving him a reputation for being aloof. However, this aloofness put Azula through the mortifying ordeal of having to hear a group of chortling girls ask her for tips on "breaking through his icy cold and nonchalant exterior". She had been informed that aloof was "sexy" and "cool". Someone had actually used these words to describe her brother… to her face! Sure, they had regretted it not long afterwards, but that didn't change the fact that Azula had to listen to it in the first place.

It was _mortifying! _

So Azula had instructed Ty Lee to take over Zuko-sitting.

She'd been basking in praise when she noticed with alarm that a few of the high-ranking admirals and their families had clustered around her brother. Ty Lee was busy flirting with some young captain in clear dereliction of her supervision duties.

The other navy commanders had never been completely satisfied with her father's conduct and the way he had tried to deflect all responsibility for the debacle in the Northern Water Tribe onto Zhao and his royal tea-loving kookiness.

Father had blamed the navy for the crushing defeat up north, heaping dishonour on them. Father hadn't even had an official day of mourning for all the lives lost, which had previously been protocol. Firelord Ozai's reason was that it was bad for morale.

In winter, Zuko had been counted amongst the casualties. Father had used her brother's "death" to make his point. If Ozai was unaffected by the loss of his own son, it was a terrible weakness for anyone else to show more obvious mourning.

Zuko was one of the only survivors from the internal walls of the icy city. Now those men were asking him all their questions…and Zuko had always been stupidly honest.

It was like watching a slow-motion ship collision.

Zuko was incensed to hear about how the navy had been treated since the Siege of the North Pole. He told the gathered people about the raw power of the Ocean Spirit. It wasn't the failure of the navy. The plan had stunk like on fire garbage!

"Who tries to literally kill the moon and ocean? Seriously now? Did Zhao, may his spirit rest in peace, just _not notice_ that the Fire Nation is all islands? We need the moon and the ocean."

Zuko had unknowingly voiced the unsayable thing (that everyone was saying anyway, but only in low voices at private locations – not in the Fire Palace grand ballroom). The Fire Nation had always been prone to inclement weather in storm season, but many foolish peasants seemed to think that their recent, unusually long spate of typhoons were the work of a vengeful Ocean Spirit, simply because they had begun outside of storm season just after the failed attack. Their superstitious muttering infuriated her father.

"I mean only a complete and utter imbecile would attack the Northern Water Tribe in the middle of winter during a full moon," her brother continued. "What sort of moron would think that's a good plan?"

Uh oh.

He'd been talking about Zhao, but everyone knew her father had loved the "Kill the moon" plan.

Now Zuko had gone and accidentally called Father a moron in public.

Well, that was certainly one way to stop everyone from speculating about Uncle.

Zuko obviously felt that he hadn't reached his required amount of daily stupidity incidents. He was clearly angry with the disrespect Ozai had heaped upon the navy for their failure, and he made no effort to hide it. He was now offering royal condolences and wanted to have an impromptu minute of silence in remembrance of the naval dead…in the middle of what was meant to be a jubilant and victorious celebration of _her _victory.

This was her party!

Why couldn't he just eat crab puffs and drink too much sake like everyone else?

Zuko said some words about the courage of their fallen sailors and how the nation was grateful for their sacrifice. It wasn't the most eloquent of speeches. Azula could have done a much better eulogy. It was unpolished and clearly unplanned, yet painfully and ridiculously sincere. The crowd were acting like Zuko was spouting beautiful and unique poetry. One noblewoman was even discreetly dabbing at her eyes. They were listening to him like what he had to say was very important.

Afterwards, Azula noticed a perceptible change in atmosphere towards her brother.

She didn't like it.

So she ruined the atmosphere at her earliest opportunity, putting on a lightning demonstration for all their guests. She threw enough lightning to frighten the oldest and crustiest naval sea barnacle.

Fear was the most reliable way.

-0-

notes: enormous thanks to boogum for the beta!


	3. misunderstandings

Jeong Jeong was surrounded by fools. Beset by fools. Besieged by fools. Wherever he looked, he saw a bigger fool.

Iroh was a fool. Pakku was a fool. The Fire Nation was a _nation of fools_. Jeong Jeong was the only sane man in the land. He was thanklessly trying to get those two old fools safely through a sea of stupid to the rendezvous point without being discovered. However, being inconspicuous was proving very difficult because of _the_ _unpleasantness_.

As far as he could tell, _the unpleasantness_ was caused by Pakku and Iroh's differing opinions on how best to look after children. Jeong Jeong knew nothing about children and wasn't going to start pretending he did now. To be honest, he would have preferred dealing with young fools than old fools. At least the young fools had _listened_ to him and thought him wise.

Iroh had blatantly ignored every bit of council Jeong Jeong had sent his way.

It had taken only a moment to understand that Iroh's nephew was one of those painfully literal types. The boy would not respond to vague proverbs, so Jeong Jeong had been honest and direct. The boy survived any 'hurt feelings' this caused.

Iroh wasn't good at being direct and honest. If Iroh had said to the Foolish Boy, "We live in a dangerous and chaotic world. It is imperative that you learn this phrase. If someone says it to you, it means they are my trusted friend and will help you," he could have solved so many problems. Instead, it seemed that Iroh had insisted on speaking in nothing but proverbs. (And really, the nearly four years they had spent together would have been the ideal time to teach the boy the cryptic arts. There wasn't much else to do on a ship that was sailing on a fool's errand. Learning some pass phrases could have at least filled in the days.)

Iroh was now determined to communicate with his nephew, but left with very few avenues to safely do it. Jeong Jeong didn't say "I told you so", but he did feel a certain sense of smug satisfaction that he had been proven so dramatically right.

They had long discussions about the inconvenience of Iroh's attempts to abscond and communicate with Foolish Boy. Jeong Jeong ranted that these attempts put them all at risk and jeopardised everything the White Lotus had been working towards for years, which would mean the world was going to continue to rip itself apart as a result of this terrible burning curse. And the resulting inferno would be _all Iroh's fault._

Iroh's handwriting was too recognisable by many in the palace to send Foolish Boy a hawk directly. Jeong Jeong insisted on secrecy and refused to go near the towns and send one on his behalf. Pakku refused to help on account of their squabbles. (Sure, Pakku _claimed_ agreement with Jeong Jeong as the reason for this, but Jeong Jeong suspected a far pettier motive.)

They knew the Foolish Boy was healthy enough to be transported home, so he was not actively dying. They had several agents working in the palace. The staff had been instructed to prepare his rooms, which meant he was not proceeding directly to prison.

If anything, it appeared an even worse fate lay in store. It seemed the boy and his sister were to be used for propaganda purposes.

The nation had grown restless. The Mad Firelord's advisors clearly thought focusing attention on his children and their victory in Ba Sing Se would reassure the populace. Many _festivities_ had already been planned.

_Parties. _

Urgh.

Jeong Jeong and the others would get more detailed information after Iroh's nephew arrived at the palace and Agent Imperial Lily could ascertain his condition. Iroh would just have to content himself with that for now.

But Iroh was not content.

He clearly felt that taking out his frustration on Pakku with vaguely threatening proverbs and constant sniping was the best remedy for his discontentment.

Pakku was the grumpiest and most unreasonable wet blanket Jeong Jeong had ever met. Loudly espousing his loathing for his own element was a more cheerful way to pass time than conversations with Pakku. Pakku never backed down from an argument and always cast a foul mood over their dinners.

Iroh claimed Pakku had mistreated Foolish Boy. Pakku insisted that he had done what was necessary to keep him alive and that the whole situation had been _Iroh's_ _fault_ for failing to instil _basic_ _common_ _sense_ in his charge. They would both appeal to Jeong Jeong to mediate and take sides.

Jeong Jeong cared naught for their reasons, refused to take sides, and had only two desires in life. Firstly, to eat his dinner _in peace_. Secondly, an end to all squabbles so they could all get on with the business of saving the world from literal fiery destruction. (The warnings from the palace spies about what the Mad Firelord was planning were of the _toasty_ side of dire).

Jeong Jeong's strategy for dealing with their squabbles was to rant loudly over the top of their arguing. He would drone on about burning curses and war until the noise he made became so inconvenient that both Pakku and Iroh stopped snapping at each other to begin sniping at him.

His second strategy was to try and ignore it. He would find a quiet place and finally enjoy some silence. If either of those two old fools found him, he would tell them that he was meditating on the many evils of firebending and had several epiphanies to share about how it was tearing the world apart.

They usually left him alone after that.

He wished for a magical solution or potion that would make everyone get along. In the absence of such a concoction, he decided to try firewhiskey. The army had applied it regularly to improve morale during long standing campaigns. Jeong Jeong needed to improve his own morale at this point.

It surely couldn't make the situation worse.

That night, Iroh declared that Pakku couldn't talk about the way he raised his nephew. Pakku didn't know what he was talking about because he didn't have any children of his own. Suddenly, the Wet Blanket crumpled in on himself and a story poured out as freely as the firewhiskey that had been flowing generously from Jeong Jeong's bottle.

It was a story of lost loves, lost bastard love-children, and Pakku having no idea how to mourn or process this loss. He had clearly settled on constant belligerence as a coping mechanism. Iroh had settled on a long isolation and suffocatingly quiet depression as a coping mechanism after the loss of his son, and he knew the pain of burying a child all too well. He commiserated accordingly.

(Come to think of it, the thing that coaxed Iroh out of his deep sadness had been the idea that the Foolish Boy needed him. Jeong Jeong had always suspected that Iroh actually needed the Foolish Boy more, but he had kept this to himself.)

There was an unseemly emotional scene. Jeong Jeong, not having a child to cry over and being uncomfortable with _emotions_ in general, excused himself. When he came back, a truce had been reached.

The next day, Pakku agreed to write notes for Iroh.

Jeong Jeong didn't like it. He thought it would still put them at risk of discovery. However, at least fire and water were working together at last. Jeong Jeong didn't know if it could be considered a step forward in their plans to restore balance.

But it was, at the very least, a step sideways.

-0-

Sokka looked at the maps in front of him, planning ahead. That morning, they'd gotten some mail informing them that the royal children had returned to the palace after a brilliant victory over the Earth Kingdom. It confirmed two things.

Thing one: the Fire Nation really thought Aang was dead, which was a huge strategic advantage.

Thing two: Zuko was definitely alive.

Sokka had been so worried. He hadn't even wanted to admit to himself what he _thought_ happened.

All that worry (and getting that weird little pimple on his throat flap thing, which was most definitely growing bigger from stress) had been for naught.

This was the _second time_ Zuko had done this to them!

Well, Sokka wasn't making the mistake of thinking Zuko was dead again unless he got to see a body first. Next time Sokka worried like this, he hoped Zuko had the decency to at least be _seriously injured _or something.

Instead of injured, Zuko was a national hero now. He was telling everyone he'd killed Aang – and they _believed_ him!

What the hell? Had these people even met Zuko? Sokka had met irate turtle-ducks with more killer instinct than his friend.

Some sake was provided by the mailship, which arrived the next morning. Sake was to celebrate the victory at Ba Sing Se, and "improve morale". Sokka had snuck his sister some. They'd sat together at the bow of the ship "improving morale" with their legs hanging over the deck, passing the small flask between them.

"We should go to the palace and get Zuko," Katara said after a few sips.

"What? Are you drunk? No more sake for you." Sokka snatched the flask back off her.

"I'm serious. It's all meant to be islands, right? I'll always be near the ocean. I could just go up to the palace and _slap everyone with the ocean _until I find him."

"Your plan is reckless, stupid, ridiculous, and likely to end in complete failure."

She huffed.

"But other than that, I can't see anything wrong with it," he added, trying to make it better.

"You don't understand, Sokka. I really miss him."

"Look, I miss him too..."

Her surprised expression annoyed him. Hey! Maybe he didn't bemoan his feelings every five minutes, but he still had them!

"Oi. He's my friend too!" Sokka said. "But I think Dad is right. It's too dangerous right now."

"Easy for dad to say."

"You think it was easy for Dad to leave Bato at the abbey? Bato was his best friend and it tore Dad up inside to leave him behind," Sokka pointed out, his voice catching a little. "But it had to be done. Dad had to keep the other warriors safe and together and fighting the good fight. Leaders have to make tough choices."

It was part of being a leader. It was the part that really sucked, and no one ever thanked you for it, but those choices still had to be made. Sokka knew Zuko would have agreed with him if he were here.

"Look at it this way," Sokka said. "We know Zuko's definitely alive. I'm sure we'll see him again before too long. Zuko _always _comes and finds us." A fond smile curved his lips. "That used to be so annoying back when he was chasing us."

"How will he even know where to find us? We don't even know where we're going."

"We're making a plan now. When we do know where we're going, we can just send him a hawk. I know how to use the messenger collect system."

"You really think so?"

"I really think it's going to be easier for Zuko to break out of his fancy palace and come to us than for us to invade the fancy palace to get him. He'd be grumpy if he knew that's what you were planning."

"He's never grumpy with me," Katara said wistfully. She looked off into the distance with an unreasonably soppy expression on her face, lost in a pleasant thought.

Sokka poked her shoulder. "C'mon on, Katara. I _know_ Zuko. He's the grumpiest person in the entire universe. There's no way that's true."

Perhaps too much sake had been involved by this point, but Katara was instantly a big fan of the send him a hawk plan. She pointed out that they had a hawk now and paper. (Sokka had been planning to keep Hawky and train him not to be an enemy bird.) She stood and walked over to the bird.

Sokka recognised when there was no stopping her. He sighed. He followed.

They had a squabble over what to write. Sokka insisted they write nothing too _obvious_ in case of _enemy_ _spies_. They should write nothing that would get Zuko or them into trouble. It had to be a subtle code.

They had code names. Sokka knew they would come in handy. Zuko knew how much Sokka loved haikus, and haikus were kinda like codes.

Sokka knew how to address mail to Zuko's ship, but that ship was at the bottom of a little harbour in the north of the Earth Kingdom. So he took his best guess at his friend's new address.

_Prince Zuko,_

_The big fancy palace in the middle of Caldera._

_Grumpy bear,_

_We are on the place_

_of song. It annoyed you so,_

_Read instructions. Soon._

That should be enough to tell him they were on a boat. The dig about instructions would surely make Zuko read closely and realise there was a second meaning to his poem. Sokka still hadn't figured out what their overall plan should be with Dad, so he didn't have a location for a meeting point, but at least this would let Zuko know that they missed him. And if he couldn't figure that out from Sokka's subtle poem, Katara's sloppy, drunken and overly affectionate scrawl at the bottom certainly hammered that point home. Sokka hadn't left her much room, and this annoyed her.

_Splasher misses her lummox _ she had crammed onto the bottom sliver of paper

They sent the bird off and waited.

-0-

Zuko stared at the two notes in front of him, feeling completely and utterly bamboozled. Beyond bamboozled. These notes were so stupid and irritating and _weird_, they made him doubt his own ability to read.

Both had arrived yesterday evening, seals intact. That didn't signify much. It was easy to melt a wax seal, after all. Azula was spying on him through Mai and Ty Lee. (The girls weren't that subtle. Mai had outright told him. Apparently his sister had drawn them up a roster and everything). Perhaps Zuko could ask them if they had any insights, because he had no ideas.

The first was written in handwriting he didn't recognise.

_Even if a seed blows in the wind, it will still long for a place to put down some roots. A flower that grows in the east will still reach for the western sun._

Seeds wanted to grow into plants. Plants liked sunshine. Zuko knew this was technically correct. He just didn't know what it _meant._

It was a nonsense note to send someone.

It sounded like something a Flower Friend would say. This was Zuko's luck. There was no escaping the inexplicable old windbags and their weird proverbs. He had half entertained the idea that it was a message from his uncle, but surely even Uncle wouldn't send him a proverb so …vague.

The second letter was, if possible, worse.

Zuko knew it was from Sokka. He'd recognise that serial killer handwriting anywhere. It also looked like Sokka had been drunk when he wrote this…which actually explained a lot.

He'd sent him a stupid haiku about the annoying song… and a dig about reading instructions. It must have been some kind of cruelly ironic joke, because no instructions followed. Zuko really would have read them if Sokka had bothered to include them.

Unless Katara's message was the instruction?

Was he being instructed to miss her?

He already did! (Every second of every day, he missed her.) He didn't need instructions to make him miss her.

Zuko scrunched up both notes in frustration.

-0-

Sokka and his dad both agreed that the eclipse plan should continue, in a modified form.

Sokka thought it was a good idea to venture inland to map the terrain more thoroughly. Dad agreed in principle, but he vehemently disagreed that Sokka, Katara, Aang and Toph should be the ones to do this mapping.

So far, Sokka had been unable to convince him otherwise. He had tried using the fact that they had made it safely from the Southern Water Tribe to the North and all the way through the Earth Kingdom to Ba Sing Se as a reason why they could be trusted on their own.

"You still haven't told me much detail about your travels." Dad looked at him curiously. "I'd love to hear about them."

"It's a really long story ..."

"I have time now."

Time with his dad. Sokka would always want that, even though he wasn't sure if the full story would make his father more or less likely to trust them to go off galavanting alone in the Fire Nation.

"Okay … well, it all started when Katara and I went fishing…"

Dad gave his full attention as the story unfolded, occasionally asking questions.

"That's how you met?" Dad said, outraged.

"Well, yeah … the first time."

"Zuko grabbed Gran Gran?"

"He felt really bad about it later, if that helps."

It didn't seem to help.

Sokka started to gloss over and skirt around things he knew would make Dad angry or worry. (Which was most of their story.) Dad really hadn't liked Sokka being kidnapped into the Spirit World or the shenanigans with Roku's temple. But volcanic explosions and Hei Bai tantrums were low-key nuisances compared to some of the other mind-bogglingly terrifying things they'd faced.

Sokka hadn't realised how much they'd all been through together until he started laying it out for his dad's scrutiny. Sugarcoating didn't work either. Dad knew how to read between a falsely sweet layer to the tangy, weird-tasting truth. From the look on Dad's face, it was giving him indigestion.

Toph walked past the open door at just the wrong moment. She grinned wickedly, like an owl-cat with the cream.

"Aren't you going to tell your dad about how Zuko kissed you!" she said, trying for an innocent tone but was undercut by the pure glee on her face.

Why did she _always_ have to do this?!

_Why?!_

"Damn it, Toph, you _know_ it's a life-saving technique! I nearly died from drowning. _It wasn't sexual!"_

Toph wandered away chuckling maniacally to herself, satisfied with causing some drama.

Dad was much more concerned about Sokka nearly drowning than he was about 'the kiss'.

Dad hugged him for ages and got upset about Sokka nearly dying, and it was nice, but it was also _weird_. Dad was normally so strong and stoic and confident. He had always seemed like he knew all the answers. Now he was hugging Sokka and apologising for not being there and feeling bad.

Sokka didn't want his Dad to feel bad. Dad hadn't been there because he was fighting the war – Sokka understood that. He wasn't going to make snide comments about it like Katara.

They were really getting off track.

Damn Toph and her conversation-derailing skills!

"Dad, I'm okay now. Really. Zuko pulled me out, and did his life-saving-thing." Sokka wasn't going to call it _the kiss of life_. That was what had started this whole mess. "And now Toph has something to tease us about forever. She just brings it up all the time and makes it sound sexual because she knows it annoys us."

Dad didn't say anything for a long moment. Eventually, he sighed loudly. "So, he saved you. Was this how you made friends?"

"What? _No._ I wasn't making friends with him just for saving me." His friendship didn't go that cheap! "Zuko was still a bit of a dick then. He took me prisoner straight afterwards. We made friends later when he was less of dick and _I'd _taken _him_ prisoner."

"Don't make it sound like you had a plan, Sokka," Toph interjected from the door. "You told me you two broke Aang out of an evil fortress of doom together, then you got him shot and he nearly bled to death. Then you had no idea what to do with him, so you accidentally kidnapped him and dragged his arse all over the Earth Kingdom as part of some kind of stupid get-rich-quick scheme."

She was back!

Oh no.

She elected to stay and add her own commentary.

Damn Toph!

She made glossing over the bad things impossible. Even worse, she seemed to know exactly what she was doing. She was unmoved by his elbow jabs or suggestions for her to go help Aang, or go practice her metal bending, or go break things. (Sokka thought he had a winner with that last one. Toph _loved_ breaking things.)

"Pass," she said, and shrugged with a smile that he had come to associate with earthquakes. "I want to tell your dad all about Ba Sing Se."

Still, even with her input, Sokka managed to avoid the Katara-is-dating-a-firebender stuff. He just didn't know how that would go down with Dad. Sokka loved his dad. He knew Dad loved them. He also knew his dad would always hate the Fire Nation because of what had happened to Mum.

Toph, in a rare display of discretion, didn't blurt it out either. Perhaps she was having too much fun bragging.

"I know I don't look like it, but I'm actually the greatest earthbender ever. I was undefeated in the Gaoling Earth Rumbles until Twinkletoes cheated…"

Or dragging Jet.

"… I can't even _see, _but I could tell Jet just looked like he had the world's most punchable face. He radiated human garbage fire energy… "

Or perhaps she had picked up on the fact that blurting out that Katara was playing snuggle-bunnies with a firebender wouldn't be a good idea, considering the war and everyone in his tribe hated the Fire Nation with an icy hatred and everything. Perhaps Toph had chosen, for once, to keep her mouth shut and not stir the seaprune pot.

Either way, Sokka was thankful for small mercies.

-0-

Zuko had been moping by the turtle-duck pond and looking at the note again, tracing his finger over Katara's writing absentmindedly, when Father finally sent for him.

It took him by surprise. He had thought Father would keep ignoring him and punishing him through parties.

Every day, he had to go to a ceremony or celebration with Azula and 'play his part'. This mostly meant either seeming aloof (if Mai was with him) or making small talk (if Ty Lee was supervising).

Urgh, small talk.

It sucked and Zuko sucked at it.

For once, Azula wasn't breathtakingly better at it either. However, seeing her also suck at something was no consolation. It just meant they both had to suffer through lengthy anecdotes together.

The constant need to 'put on a show' and be on display with everyone _staring _at him was making him actually feel nostalgic for his banishment.

It hadn't been _that_ _bad_, had it?

At least Lieutenant Jee never talked endlessly about where he 'summered'.

To make matters worse, Zuko had to (almost completely) give up swearing too. It was unprincely, and he was a prince again. Besides, his mother had raised him to have better public manners than that. He wasn't going to shame her.

But saying 'hedgehog-molester' just wasn't the same. It didn't come close to venting his frustration.

So he swore around Azula.

Swearing around Azula, when it was just the two of them, and seeing her irritated reactions was one of the few joys left for him. Zuko had to find joy wherever he could now that he had no girlfriend, no uncle, no friends, and nothing to do - except feel sorry for himself and be _that _person at parties.

_That person _felt weird and uncomfortable at parties, always said the wrong thing, and ruined the mood. Apparently, eulogies for naval dead were mood-ruiners and he had to stop spontaneously doing them.

Zuko stuffed the note hastily in his pocket and followed the servant to the throne room. He knelt before his sovereign and tried not to flinch at the way Father's fire climbed higher. Father had always hated it when Zuko flinched, because that showed weakness. Zuko tried to make his face blank like Mai's.

Father descended from the throne and circled around him. He called Zuko 'son' and congratulated him on murdering a child and betraying Uncle. "You've finally made me proud," he declared.

The weakest part of Zuko, the part that was still a thirteen-year-old child, desperate for his father to love him, rejoiced for a fraction of a second. The older, angrier part recoiled.

_That's what it would have cost to regain my honour from him._

The realisation dumped cold ashes over any joyful feeling. Father would have demanded he give up his very soul and turn his back on everything he knew real honour to be just for a scrap of approval from a blazing psychopath.

"Tell me," Father said in a civil tone, "did your Uncle ever mention any 'friends' from the other nations…let's say the Water Tribes?"

Zuko shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. He had been half expecting a haranguing after what Azula said about how stupid he was at parties. Yet father was being ... not terrifyingly awful.

His father had never really been this cordial to him. There was some kind of trap here. Father hadn't summoned Zuko to make pleasant conversation.

"No, Your Majesty."

Father didn't correct him and say, "Oh please, call me Father" – but then again, Zuko hadn't expected him to. Instead, Father made a rumbling noise of disapproval.

"It appears that a master waterbender was involved in freeing your uncle from his imprisonment on the ship. It cannot have been sanctioned by their chief, a weak and cowardly non-bender hiding behind his ice walls. You were in the Northern Water Tribe. Do you know any master waterbenders who would dare to go around their chief to challenge me?"

There was no warmth in Father's tone now. He needed a waterbender to blame, but Zuko wouldn't give him one. Zuko knew an answer that wouldn't get anyone else hurt. People were meant to be more forgiving of stupidity, after all.

"I wasn't paying attention to their internal politics, Your Majesty."

There was a long silence. Zuko looked at the floor and tried to squash the terrible feeling clawing at his guts. He reminded himself that there was a note in his pocket that proved that there were people out there who missed him and who wouldn't hurt him. (Even if part of it was a stupid, indecipherable and ridiculous haiku, Zuko would take it). He had new scars on his body that proved it had been real. He had survived the North Pole and Ba Sing Se. He would survive this too.

"You mean to tell me that you were handed an ideal opportunity to spy on one of our arch-enemies and you did not make good use of it?"

Zuko shook his head. Saying as little as possible was the smartest move here.

"Well, I shouldn't be surprised. Tell me Zuko, if I were to replace you with a wet cabbage, would that vegetable make a better son?"

"I…"

"Don't actually answer, stupid boy!"

Zuko wasn't sure if he was dismissed or not, so he just stayed quietly kneeling. His father circled him a few more times, looking at him and not saying anything. It was unnerving – but that was probably why Father did it.

Zuko had stood on glaciers that held more warmth towards him than his father. Ozai either didn't notice or didn't care how awkward things were between them.

"Just so you know, the answer is _yes," _Father said. "I would prefer a cabbage child because a cabbage is silent. I have no use for _noisy_ vegetables."

Father had a second meaning about Zuko making too much noise, and he glared long enough to make sure that message sunk in.

_Vegetables didn't make noise. They were vegetables._

He could have at least chosen a more threatening metaphor. Azula could come up with scarier ones in her sleep.

Zuko wasn't sure how long he would have to keep quietly kneeling. Surely, they both had better things to do? Zuko had notes to stare at in frustration and longing. He'd been planning a good long mope by the pond. His father really should have some Firelording to do. They clearly didn't have anything to say to each other anymore.

"Try and be as similar to a cabbage as you can, Zuko," Father instructed at long last. "Dismissed."

Zuko _didn't_ _run_, but he walked very briskly away from the throne room to the gardens. He escaped the guards with ease.

He was learning all the secret ways in and out of the palace. He already knew a few hidden passages to escape the imperial city. He was sure there were more in the hillsides around the province. Uncle had taught him to _always have an exit strategy._

He decided to go to the nearest home-island barbeque to eat his weight in cow-pig because it couldn't make him feel worse. He might be regulated to the role of cabbage-son, but at least he didn't have to be starving anymore.

Ty Lee and Mai found him sometime later. Ty Lee sat down next to him and ordered sweet and spicy cow-pig skewers. Mai made a dry comment about his taste in home island barbeque dishes and his etiquette but joined them anyway. Azula showed up "fashionably late" and sat down like she owned the place and everyone in it, even though Zuko had never invited her… or Ty Lee ... or Mai to his sad, lonely, self-pitying dinner.

He just wanted to mope in peace!

The girls openly talked about 'keeping an eye on him' – while he was sitting right there! It riled. He knew Azula was enjoying seeing him pissed off.

"Oh, Zuzu, don't be like this. We're doing this for your own good. It's to stop you from doing anything stupid."

"You can't stop me!" Zuko fired back at her.

It had sounded smarter in his head.

-0-

"So, you told me and Toph that you mastered the Avatar State," Sokka said. "Can you still do that or did Gremlin's lightning bolt knock anything loose?"

Aang, who had been feeling much better, had started to walk around the deck for short periods. The sun was certainly putting more colour in his face. A little too much colour. He had gone bright red.

Sokka narrowed his eyes.

"I can do it." Aang said nervously.

"Great! That will make the invasion so much easier. You can just _Avatar State slice_, and it's all done!"

Aang yelled about how they couldn't just take the Avatar State for granted and expect it to solve everything. Sokka could see through his shouty protests. Aang was going to deny losing his Avatar Mojo until he was directly challenged. Then he would mostly likely go off in a huff, mope a bit…and then Katara would throw him a pity party and he would confess his lost mojo. Sokka saw all that coming.

What he didn't predict was the surprise fireballs.

Aang had been gesturing irately at the sky when two huge fireballs shot out, startling nearly everyone on deck, no one more so than Aang. He stared at his hands in horror before giving a shocked yelp and running away.

This was a totally different vibe to going off in a huff. It was going to take more than a Katara pity party to fix this. Toph yelling, "I knew it! I told you so, Twinkletoes!" with an unnecessary amount of gleeful vindication _wasn't_ _helping _either.

Sokka went to find his dad while Katara and Toph searched for Aang. They had to discuss the little issue of Aang's random fire blasts. Aang was really going to need to learn to control his firebending now, at least until Zuko found them again. Zuko still hadn't replied to Sokka's letter, even though their bird had returned from something called a relay station with a little sheet of paper entitled _Etiquette for correctly addressing messenger hawks. _It pointed out all the errors in Sokka's address writing skills.

Unless that had been Zuko's reply?

Dad listened as Sokka went over his plan. He knew Dad didn't _like_ the plan, but at least he heard Sokka's explanations without interrupting.

They knew a lot about Fire Nation culture, so they could blend in, follow Dad's schedule for mapping the terrain, and find Aang a firebending teacher. (And find a place to meet up with their friend.) That was at least three puffin-gulls with one stone! They could hide Aang's identity while they travelled. Aang's hair had grown all over while he was sick. All he needed was a bandana to cover the arrow-tip and no one would ever know he was the Avatar.

"No!" Aang said suddenly, coming out of his hiding place. He'd been listening to every word and was even more displeased with the plan than Dad, and that was saying something.

"I don't want to go into the Fire Nation if I can't wear my arrow proudly and let the world know I'm alive."

"Come on, Aang. You're shooting fire out of your hands when you get upset. We need to find you a firebending teacher who can help you...you know..._stop doing that._ Remember what happened last time..."

_You burned my sister. _

"I didn't mean to...it was an accident and ... "

Aang looked hurt and betrayed and guilty. Sokka knew he was making it worse, but for once he couldn't stop himself. His instincts had always told him Aang shouldn't play around with fire, but that didn't change the fact that Aang had to learn.

"You need a teacher," Sokka said firmly, "and you can't go waltzing around the Fire Nation as the Avatar. Be practical."

"Well, maybe I don't want to be practical!" Aang yelled. He stomped away, sparks flashing out of his clenched fists.

Sokka sighed deeply. He'd been worried Aang was going to say something like that.

_-0-_

_Boogum is the most amazing beta and I owe her a million thanks!_


	4. The ocean spirit

_-0-_

"_Now let her go…"_

Aang was really trying! He was meditating all the time, but the chakra wouldn't budge. He hadn't wanted anyone to know that he couldn't go into the Avatar State, that he had failed the Earth Kingdom and their friend with nothing to show for it, but trying to open the seventh chakra in secret was proving more difficult than Aang thought.

He closed his eyes and tried again.

"_Let the cosmic spiritual energy flow through you… let her go…"_

"I'm not going anywhere, Aang." Katara stomped in. "I'm going to help you figure this out."

Katara tried to make him feel better about his stinky failure status. She tried to _sugarcoat_ it, like Sokka said she did sometimes. Aang sent her away. Katara being sweet to him didn't change the fact that Aang was a big, stinky failure who failed.

Now Sokka was talking about taking him into the Fire Nation, and invasion plans, and Aang _hated_ it. He didn't want anyone else risking their lives for him. Just thinking about it made sparks fly out of his fingertips.

_Monkeyfeathers!_

Not again.

He clenched his fists and tried to remember what Jeong Jeong had taught him, but he'd mostly just said things like "Control your fire, or it will control you and hurt what you hold most dear, for fire can only cause pain and suffering..."

_You burned my sister!_

Aang had thought that never firebending again was the answer, because he didn't want to cause pain and suffering. So, naturally, the universe gave him even more fire, even more powers he couldn't control, because that was how the universe worked.

Jeong Jeong's teachings never helped Aang control his fire, despite the old deserter going on and on (and on and on and on) about how important control was. Remembering Jeong Jeong's rantings about fire being a burning curse that burned people, and Aang _Not Being Ready_ made him feel small and frustrated and even more like a failure than he already did.

Jeong Jeong made controlling fire seem like a hopeless, never-ending struggle, and the only solution was living in woods far away from people so you didn't accidentally set them on fire. Aang didn't want to become a grumpy hermit and live in the the only other firebender to give him any advice was Zuko, and Zuko was also super grumpy. However, Zuko wasn't a forest-dwelling hermit, and he had _liked_ his fire.

Zuko never burned or hurt anything or anyone he didn't want to. Zuko said that Aang made a mistake when he hurt Katara, but that didn't mean he would make the same mistake again, because intentions mattered and mistakes were lessons too and Aang could learn.

Aang didn't want to just learn from mistakes. He wished Zuko was here to teach him properly. (It would have been nice if Zuko had thought of giving Aang better instructions on how to firebend _before_ he shoved fire into Aang. Instructions would have been nice, but Sokka had always said instructions were Zuko's true weakness in life.)

"_Breathing's important, Aang," _was one of the only instructions Zuko had said about firebending.

Aang could start there.

Breathing had been important to Monk Gyatso too. Fire and air were the same like that. Aang remembered meditating with Gyatso in the peach grove after they found out he was the Avatar. They sat for what felt like hours, just breathing together, until Aang had calmed down.

Aang focused on his inhalation and longed for his home.

_In...2….3...4..._

He opened his eyes. He was in his old room at the Southern Air Temple. It looked exactly as it had the day he left. The bison glass that he had made with Kuzon was reflecting the light. Monk Gyatso could have been about to burst into the room with a wide, kind smile and a custard tart at any moment.

Aang heard voices from the hall and his heart lifted. He ran out to find these other airbenders, but they always seemed to be a few rooms ahead of him. He started running through the temples, chasing the voices and calling out, but every hall, every room and every garden was empty.

"Avatar Aang, welcome home," a gentle voice called from over his shoulder.

He turned and saw Avatar Yangchen sitting in the peach grove. His heart sank. This was an Avatar vision. This wasn't real.

"They are just echoes, Avatar Aang. They were once here in this place," Yangchen explained as she waved her arm gracefully around the grove, "and now they live here." She pointed to his chest. "They are in your heart always."

_If that were true, then why did Aang's heart feel so empty?_

"Your spirit is aching for your home."

He nodded miserably and hung his head.

Yangchen lifted his chin gently. "You want the wisdom of an Air Nomad. Ask me."

Aang had so many questions, but they all boiled down to one thing. "Tell me how to stop bad things happening."

"You can't," Avatar Yangchen said simply, dropping her hand. "To stop all bad things, you would have to exert complete power over every living thing."

"If I got more powerful…I mean, if I could master the Avatar State, would that help?"

"Mastering the Avatar State is a journey, not a destination."

The monks had been like this too. They never gave Aang a direct answer. They preferred to let Aang puzzle things out on his own. They said figuring things out for himself was the better path to wisdom.

But it was all _too big_ and _too hard_ and _too_ _complicated_. Aang was _tired_. He was sick of trying to figure it out on his own. He just wanted a direct answer for once.

"I see the fire is bright in you tonight," Yangchen said, resting her hands on her knees. "Fire is the element of power. Do you think you would enjoy power?"

"Did you?" Aang snapped, feeling churlish and doing what the monks always did to him by answering a question with another question.

"I do not think it is possible to truly enjoy power. I was taught that all living things should be free... but there is a power in being the Avatar that goes beyond mastering the elements. People will obey us because they believe in it. I _made_ people obey me." Yangchen frowned. "Truly understanding the Avatar's duty and making the right choices…it was a heavy burden for me."

It made Aang feel less alone when she said that.

"You are feeling great unease about your power right now," Yangchen said softly. "Have you done something you regret?"

The way she spoke was almost like how Katara did to him. It felt easy to confide in her.

"I made a choice. It was the wrong choice. I lost the Earth Kingdom. We had to leave our friend behind. I did it because I wanted Katara, but if she ever finds out, she'll be so furious with me."

"This Katara. you gave up on your seventh chakra and controlling the Avatar State because of your attachment to her," Yangchen stated simply, not judging him.

"I couldn't let her go. I love her."

"You do not love her."

"I do!" Aang argued.

"You do not. You love the way she makes you feel."

Aang did love Katara. He loved all his friends, but he loved Katara _the most._ He knew she didn't want to be his girlfriend, but she loved him like family, and he was _trying_ to love her back the same way...

"You must let her go," Yangchen advised serenely.

Now Yangchen was saying Aang didn't even get to be her friend!

It wasn't fair!

"But I need someone to love me!" Aang protested. "You and the guru just keep saying I have to 'let go' and be completely alone, and I don't want to be alone!"

"To be the Avatar is to be alone." Her tone was gentle and her eyes were sad.

"Then I don't want to be the Avatar anymore!"

He stood up quickly, sparks flying from his fingers. A sour lemon was being squeezed in the back of his throat and his eyes were stinging. He hated the sour-lemon in the throat feeling, and so he did what he always did when he felt it. He ran away through the empty corridors that used to be his home. His echoing footsteps reminded him that everyone he used to love was lost to him forever.

The Air Nomads had been his family. He'd run away and they'd all died because Firelord Sozin was looking for Aang, and life wasn't sacred to the Firelords.

So Aang had made a new family. He hoped being the Avatar would make him strong enough to keep his new family safe and together, because he wasn't going to run away from them.

No, this time his mistake had been running towards them...towards her...because he was the Avatar and he should have been able to protect the people he loved.

"_I only have three people. I'm sure I can keep us all safe_," Aang had said to Zuko, a lifetime ago in an ice cell up in the Northern Water Tribe. Zuko had believed him. He'd trusted Aang even though nothing but terrible things had happened after that, because Aang couldn't keep anyone safe…

Because Aang was the problem.

Because being around the Avatar was dangerous.

That was why the Avatar had to be alone, Aang realised with a start. Bad things kept happening around him and hurting the people close to him. He had hurt so many people...and he still couldn't control the Avatar State.

Unbidden, he thought of icy waters, the wreckage of a fleet, and he shuddered. He thought of Fong's soldiers. He thought of Zuko alone under Ba Sing Se after they'd escaped.

Until the messages, Aang thought Zuko had been dead for sure, because the whole city had fallen to Zuko's sister. As much as Zuko and Sokka had joked about murder-sisters and super-mega-treason, it was the sort of joke that wasn't really a joke, but you had to laugh anyway because if you didn't, you would start getting real worried. Aang had thought he got his friend killed, and it was only through sheer dumb luck that he was wrong.

Aang felt worse about Zuko than he did about the thousands who drowned up north, or the hundreds he'd injured, and he didn't know what that said about him as an Avatar. It probably wasn't anything good. But failing Zuko had felt different because Zuko was his friend. He hadn't known any of those Fire Nation soldiers who drowned, or the Earth Kingdom soldiers who let Fong drown Katara in earth like 'following orders' was an excuse .

_All life is sacred_, the monks had said, but some life was more sacred to Aang than others.

Sokka, Katara and Toph – they were more important to Aang, and at least he could protect them. If protecting them meant he had to be alone, so be it.

If Aang stayed on the boat, he was definitely going to get one of his friends killed...for real, this time.

Aang reached for his glider, his mind made up.

-0-

La was the great Ocean Spirit. He wasn't in the habit of interfering. But he was angry. An angry spirit can be capricious...vindictive.

He railed against the Fire Nation. Their arrogance, their ignorance in thinking they were higher than the spirits had to be corrected. They had forgotten the spirits.

La reminded them.

They _had_ to be punished.

A firebender had dared to murder his beloved Tui. The whole nation and its ill-gotten colonies felt La's wrath.

There were typhoons, hurricanes, waves taller than their ghastly palace and wild, unnavigable seas. The islands cowered. Buildings were swept away. Blockade ships sank. Crops were destroyed. People went hungry.

People muttered about La and his fury in hushed voices. They left offerings in untended temples to placate him.

La was not placated.

They swept the temples, repainted their insides, showed respect and prayed for absolution.

La did not grant it to them.

The Girl in the Moon thought it was excessive, but she was a very young spirit. She did not know the joys that came from excess. She was still attached to the world, and to particular people in it.

She often watched the boy she had loved, and his friends. She blessed him where she could.

She intervened.

The Avatar was fatally wounded in a city far from the ocean. The Girl in the Moon helped the Fire Boy and the Water Girl keep the Avatar alive.

Tui had been fond of those two lovers. Tui believed in intervening too.

The Girl in the Moon told La the Avatar must live and restore balance.

La had seen thousands of Avatars, but the girl insisted her Avatar was _special_.

_They_ _always_ _were_.

The Girl in the Moon would learn, one day.

The Avatar leapt from a ship in the middle of La's storm, not long after the gift of life had been so generously bestowed on him.

The Girl in the Moon was frantic. She asked La to halt the storm.

"_You should not be intervening again", _he told her.

"_You intervene all the time," _The Girl in the Moon replied. "_You have done nothing but hammer these people with your storms to punish them. How is that different?_

Ah, she did have a point there.

The ocean temples were now immaculate, freshly painted and overflowing with offerings. The Fire Nation would never forget that their survival was reliant on the goodwill of the ocean.

La stopped feeding the storm, even though he knew the tempest was too big, too powerful to be halted on a whim. It had to exhaust itself. Like his rage and grief, some things had to be allowed to run their course. But once this storm had ended, he would make no more.

The Girl in the Moon scrambled for a way to help her friend, her Avatar. She was trying to call out to him, to reach him with her words. La found he was moved by her attempts to help a foolish boy who did not understand.

Humans _never_ did.

La had only ever tried to make one human understand.

La had granted life once, and now that human owed him. La offered him up to the Girl in the Moon as a gift. She could use this human for the purpose of saving her Avatar – no more, no less.

The Girl in the Moon hesitated. "_Using people. It feels wrong_."

"_Then give him a choice,"_ La replied impassively. "_He will choose to be of use to his friend_."

La knew his human. He understood about undertows, those currents waiting to drag a person down. Strong swimmer. Lover of water. He was already known to the Avatar in two lifetimes. His spiritual echo would be familiar to the young, lonely, foolish child-Avatar. A face from the past might bring comfort.

"_Spiritual echo?" _The Girl in the Moon was perturbed.

"_If you charge him with a spiritual duty, he will need a spiritual form to complete it."_

"_Will that hurt him?"_

"_This bothers you?"_

La was often perplexed by his new companion. It had been a long time since he had been bothered by the suffering of humans.

"_I owed my life to Tui, and I did not get to keep it. I won't take life from another. I will find a different way to help Aang, if that's the price."_

The Girl in the Moon was resolute. She had sacrificed herself willingly, but not without sadness and regret for the loss of her little human life. She had simply considered Tui's continued existence more important than her own and paid the price accordingly.

But she would not take life from another. It was not in her nature.

The girl was not Tui. She would never be Tui. But sometimes La sensed a little of his lover shining out of the Girl In The Moon. Tonight, he could see Tui, illuminating the way forward brightly.

"_It won't hurt him,"_ he said. "_I promise. He will consider it a strange and baffling dream._

The Girl in the Moon was happy, not that La cared for such things. She thanked La, saying it was a good thing La was there.

Then again, it was the Fire Nation in storm season.

La was everywhere.

**-0-**

Zuko could see Aang below, holding onto a piece of driftwood and struggling against a storm. The idiot was paddling against the current and looked exhausted. Aang's arms loosened their grip on the log. His eyes widened in alarm. He flailed in the water, his head sinking under.

There was a full moon above Zuko. He heard that voice again, the same one from the crystal catacombs under Ba Sing Se.

"_This can be a passing dream, or you can dive in after Aang and pull him out._ _You choose…"_

Maybe the voice really was Yue from her lunar perch. She certainly seemed to believe in intervening more than your usual spirit. It was like she was proving him wrong from beyond the grave, even though she'd never get to enjoy saying "Ha! I told you the spirits cared!" to his face.

Zuko dived into the water after Aang. The cold water felt real. The storm felt very real. Zuko could see properly out of both eyes again, which couldn't be real_..._ but it did make finding Aang in the murky depths easier.

He grabbed Aang under his armpits and kicked for the surface. The undertow was strong, but Zuko was more determined. He wasn't going to let Aang be dragged under. But it was hard because Aang had gotten a lot fatter and taller... heavier. Either that or Zuko had gotten smaller.

This dream was _weird._

Their heads broke the surface. Aang inhaled big gasps of air, spluttering. Zuko looped one arm around Aang, holding him up. The driftwood was still floating nearby.

"Don't swim against the current, Aang," Zuko scolded as he passed it over. "You'll only exhaust yourself."

Aang looked at him like it was Lunar New Year and Zuko had just handed him a wonderful present. "You're here!" he cried, his eyes wide and bewildered. "Will you stay with me? I don't want you to go."

"I think this is some weird spirit dream, mumbo-jumbo thing, so I might not be able to stay for long."

Aang looked crestfallen.

"But I'll stay as long as I can," Zuko added.

Aang brightened. "I'm glad you're here. Yue was here for a moment…"

"...That's nice?"

"But now she's gone."

"That's ... a shame?" Zuko said, humouring Aang's delusions, because Yue was dead but imagining her during the storm had obviously helped.

"She probably has moon duties," Aang said. "She never asked to be the moon, but it's her job now and she can't quit."

Zuko could tell they were talking about more than Yue right now.

"Sometimes we have responsibilities we can't quit, and …" Zuko didn't know how to finish that sentence in a way that would help Aang.

Zuko and Azula had been lectured at great length regarding their royal responsibilities by their mother, but Zuko never resented his responsibilities. (Until now. Now his responsibilities were appearing at parties and resembling a cabbage. And Azula didn't care for Mother's teachings or want to look after their people because it was _weak _and _Father wouldn't approve._ Plus, Father had changed all the rules after Mother had gone but never explained, and it was up to Zuko to learn them on his own.)

Still, he never dreaded his responsibilities the way Aang did. Aang was scared of the Avatar State. As far as Zuko knew, he was the only person Aang had ever told. Aang was expected to stop a war after a century of adults fighting. He was half-trained and using a power that frightened him. Zuko didn't know how to make that better.

"Would you quit being the Avatar if you could?" he asked directly.

"Yes," Aang confessed in a small voice. "I wish I was back home and none of this had ever happened."

Ah, Zuko knew that feeling. He'd nursed that same private wish for three long years and clung to the idea of a _before_ where everything had been perfect. He'd believed that if he just tried harder and was better and smarter, he could get back to it.

Uncle had a proverb he liked to say about not looking back, and he'd said it with his _helpful_ tone a lot during that first year at sea, even though Zuko hadn't found it helpful at the time and had been an extremely unappreciative audience. Zuko tried to remember it.

"Well, the pelican-whale can't look back at summer when she is on her migratory journey. She has to look towards the poles."

Aang gave him a look that would be best described as 'politely confused during an existential crisis', so Zuko obviously wasn't saying it right. He was never good at proverbing, but for Aang, he'd try again.

"I think it means don't look behind you. You're not going that way."

Aang nodded, like what Zuko said made sense and comforted him. "You're saying I can't go home or change the past. I just have to move forward."

"Exactly," Zuko encouraged, proud of his proverbing (if somewhat surprised at his success).

"Katara says it's meant to be this way, and Avatar Kyoshi says I'm meant to be the Avatar for this time."

"I think they're right. You're the only person outside the Fire Nation who doesn't hate the Fire Nation."

The more Zuko learned about the war, the more he felt that Aang's aggressively friendly way of seeing the world was extraordinary.

"Well I have good Fire Nation friends," Aang said, nodding towards Zuko. He'd always been open in his affection, even if Zuko mostly responded with bafflement interspersed with grumpy outbursts.

And yes, it was true that Zuko was Aang's friend, but this was bigger than friendship. Sokka and Katara were his close friends, and they certainly didn't hate Zuko, but they definitely didn't hold any warm feelings for his homeland either. Liking him as a person didn't change what had happened to their mother or how they felt about his country.

All of the Air Nomads were murdered, yet Aang never showed any anger towards Zuko's people.

"I don't think it's that," Zuko said. "Even after you found out what happened to your people, you still didn't hate us."

"I can't hate you!"

"See, that's what I mean."

Zuko knew he'd done bad things to Aang before they made friends, and Aang had never held any of it against him. Zuko, who was used to everything being held against him, found this easy forgiveness incredibly strange.

"The war has made everyone hate each other," he explained, "but you...you try to make friends with _anything_ _that_ _moves_, and you see the best in people, and you never hold a grudge. Maybe the world needs an Avatar who doesn't hate anyone."

"Thank you," Aang said softly, reaching to give him a hug.

Zuko relented because he knew struggling only got him more hugged. But instead of feeling a hug, there was nothing. Aang's hand went straight through Zuko's chest, like Zuko was a ghost.

_Well that was freaky and disturbing, _Zuko thought as he reeled back.

"You're not real, are you?" Aang said, withdrawing his hand and looking down at the log morosely. A wave splashed him in the face and his grip slackened.

"I am real!" Zuko grumbled as he swam behind Aang. "Maybe you're the one who isn't real."

They were in _his_ dream. He should at least get to be real in his own dreams.

Zuko helped boost Aang up until he was half-lying on the log. He saw the outline of an island in the moonlight and started swimming for it, dragging Aang along. Aang realised what he was doing and used his waterbending to push them forwards.

"This is so weird," Aang said.

He stopped bending for a moment and reached out, putting his hand through Zuko's body. Zuko tried swatting his hand away, but it passed through his arm.

"Ooh, that's interesting," Aang said. "You can grab me to save me, but you can't stop my arm if I do this..." Aang did it again, with great curiosity, like he was Sokka testing something _for science!_

"Stop that. It's freaking me out!"

"So how does this ghost thing work?" Aang asked, unperturbed as he waved his hand through Zuko's head a few times.

"I'm not a ghost! I just don't like you sticking your grubby hand right through my head. I'm sure that's unhygienic."

"Oh. Sorry." Aang gave a sheepish smile before adding, "I've really missed you, you know."

"I've missed you too."

Zuko couldn't believe it was true. He missed the weirdest things. Dodging relentless, cheery, Aang hugs. Sokka doing things for science. Toph poking him. Feeling Katara's hand in his, and watching the snowfall with her, and… who was he kidding? He missed everything about her.

"I wish you were real," Aang said after a while. "But even if you're not real, I'm glad you're here. You were always my best friend."

"I thought Katara was your favourite, or maybe Sokka, or maybe even Toph? I always figured I was in _at least _fourth place behind those guys."

"You know those guys?" Aang spluttered.

"Did you hit your head, Aang?"

Zuko felt worried. Aang must have been really muddled if he forgot something like Zuko travelling with them.

"No," Aang said, sounding confused, "but I haven't seen you in a hundred years."

"Yeah, it feels that way, doesn't it?"

It felt like forever since he had been in Ba Sing Se with his friends.

They were in shallow water now. The ocean was calmer here since they'd floated past the reef. Aang was going to be okay now. That was the important thing.

Zuko started towing the log to shore, while Aang held on. It got more difficult as the water got shallower. His hands couldn't grip anything and started going straight through the bark, becoming invisible, which wasn't good.

"Aang, I don't think I can help you anymore," Zuko said, and pointed to his ghosty condition.

"Maybe you've already helped me enough? I think I'll be okay now." Aang seemed remarkably unconcerned about the ghost thing. "You reminded me how much easier it is to face scary things when you have a friend by your side."

"I mean, I also dragged your arse out of the water several times. I think that was a bigger help, to be honest."

Aang never did well with sarcasm. "It was," he said with a smile.

Suddenly, Zuko woke up. He was warm and dry and back in his bed in the palace, like he had never left.

-0-

Aang waded to the shore after Kuzon had vanished. He watched the sunrise from the beach and saw Yue dip below the horizon, his heart growing lighter.

Yue was looking after him the best that she could. Yue understood duty and sacrifice, but she didn't demand these things of Aang. In the middle of a terrible storm, she'd sent his oldest, bestest friend to him. Aang had felt stronger and braver and better with Kuzon beside him.

This was Kuzon's Island, he realised, as he surveyed the beach. Maybe that was why his friend could come?

Aang knew Avatar Yangchen meant well, and he knew he wasn't meant to disagree with elders, but he thought she was wrong.

The Guru said separation was an illusion and everything was connected, and Aang finally felt it at last.

Everyone he had ever loved, or who had ever loved him – they were with him. Aang knew he was a _better _Avatar with friends around him.

With friends from every nation, maybe Aang could finally be the Avatar this world needed.

-0-

Enormous thanks to Boogum for being the best beta ever!


	5. The Outer Islands

They found Aang washed up on the shore like a piece of driftwood. He babbled about people coming back from the dead as an excuse for absconding like a big absconder. Sokka had just had eighteen hundred brain explosions of worry, and Aang's excuse was that he was following ghosts?

Truthfully, Sokka had been following ghosts too when he saw the moon light up a path on the ocean, but that was beside the point!

Yue wasn't coming back_, _Sokka reminded himself, no matter what Aang said. Aang was obviously feeling a little loopy from inhaling so much seawater. He was going on about Yue and Kuzon coming to him. His eyes had taken on a manic sheen.

"Kuzon really was here," Aang said. "I swear. I mean, he wasn't _really here,_ because I could put my hand straight through him and he didn't like that..."

Stupid Kuzon, coming back from the dead to save Aang.

"Aang, have you hit your head?" Katara asked gently.

"That's exactly what Kuzon said!" Aang said, as if this proved some big point. "Don't you see? It's all connected. _We're all connected_. Everything is connected! I'm connected to you and to Toph and to Sokka and to these crabs and to that rock and..." Aang began pointing out random stuff in the cave.

Definitely too much seawater.

"Well, I think it's a good idea for you to be connected with sleep, young man," Katara said in her mum voice, hands on her hips.

Uh oh.

She called him 'young man'.

Aang was in _so much_ trouble.

Katara had been really upset about the absconding. (She'd shouted about her feelings at Dad, and then Dad said something to make it better because Dad was good at feelings.) More feelings, in the guise of motherly concern, were going to be showered over Aang. Luckily, Sokka was still wearing his Fire Navy uniform, so he could escape conversations about feelings. He set off towards the port town to get their supplies.

Sokka stopped at the hawkery and fished _Correct Etiquette for Addressing Messenger Hawks: A short, Illustrated Guide _out of his pocket. Sokka had to think of a code that would look like nonsense to enemy spies, but let Zuko know their location.

Zuko's uncle had lots of proverbs involving flowers, and that guy was great at subtle codes and secret messages. Zuko must have known what they meant because he always talked about how wise his uncle was. He knew Sokka loved haikus. They were on Cherry Island, and even though the blossom season had passed, Sokka reasoned that Zuko would still get it.

He wrote:

_Grumpy bear,_

_At the place of spring,_

_Where the air tastes like pink fruit_

_There is a big cave._

His letter to his dad was even harder. Sokka thought for ages, trying to find the correct wording for "I know you didn't want us to go off on our own, and you worry about our safety, but my instincts tell me this is the best thing to do. It's the simplest way to help Aang learn firebending and find our friend….

And it's not as dangerous as you think. Fire Nation people aren't that scary when they're not in armour, and a lot of them aren't very observant. I'm not saying they're all idiots, but they also aren't the _brightest_ _sparks_ \- geddit? I think we'd do a better job of blending in than your older warriors. They hate them all furiously and will always be looking for a fight. (Don't get me wrong, if you go looking for a fight with a firebender, you're going to get one). The old warriors will stick out like sore thumbs on a penguin otter. We'll be masters of disguise and avoid trouble and evade suspicion...

Besides, it's done now and we are here.

You and Bato both said things like 'it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission' and acted like that was some deep wisdom, and now I've internalised that. So, here I am not asking permission."

Dad replied much quicker than Zuko.

Dad found a nice, calm way to say that while he respected Sokka's intelligence, his instincts were "everyone follow the moonbeam" and for this reason Dad had _concerns_ regarding Sokka's navigation skills. He still had many _concerns_ about this plan in general—especially the part about avoiding trouble, because Dad _knew_ his children. In short, Sokka needed to get everyone on the bison and fly back to the boat this instant. No arguments.

Sokka had some arguments.

Firstly, "everyone follow the moonbeam" turned out to be correct, so his instincts were unassailable. Secondly, he knew what he was doing, and Dad should trust him. Thirdly, they would follow the schedule and Sokka would send a hawk at least every two days.

Lastly, had Dad ever tried _forcing_ Katara to do something she didn't want to do? Dad had said Sokka's place was looking after Katara. There was _no_ _way_, short of bopping her on the head and dragging her unconscious form over his shoulder, that Sokka was getting Katara back to the boat. If he did this, then everyone on the boat was in for a rant about how men were not the boss of her, and _feminism (_which was a word Suki had taught her and Katara loved to explain) and there would be angry waterbending with the rant, and they would be on a boat while this angry waterbending and ranting about the treatment of women was occurring.

Dad sent a detailed map and schedule, with hawkery points mapped out, in response.

-0-

_Don't underestimate my powers of annoyance. I can annoy you from afar._

Zuko was beginning to wonder if this note existed solely to annoy and confuse him. The longer he looked at it, the less sense it made. Zuko knew Sokka was trying to tell him something through crappy haiku, but what?

Their location made the most sense.

Okay, so he just had to translate Sokka's gibberish into actual landmarks and coordinates.

But where to start? He didn't even know if this gibberish meant they were in the Fire Nation or the Earth Kingdom.

Pink fruit seemed to be the key word here, but pink fruit grew all over the place. Did Sokka mean watermelons? Or maybe Guavas. The outside of a dragon-fruit was also pink. Grapefruits were pink too, but they were kind of gross. The skin of a mango could be pink, and mango was Katara's favourite.

_Katara…_

If she were here, he'd feed her mangoes everyday. He'd get her whatever fruit she wanted, whenever she wanted, and she'd help him with her brother's ridiculous messages and then she'd…

He shook off his daydream and stared back at the ridiculous message. He had to find her first if he wanted to do _that _with her.

He looked at the note again. Maybe caves was the key information?

Omashu had a lot of caves….

-0-

Aang gave them the _Kuzon said _version of a tour of the main town on the island.

"Kuzon said this was the place where a koala sheep got its heads stuck in a fence. Kuzon said he saw a lion turtle from these docks. Kuzon said a squid shark climbed out of the water to steal fish from this shop…"

_Kuzon was full of bearshit. _Toph kept this thought to herself. Aang was more like his usual, bouncy twinkletoes self, and she wasn't going to ruin it for him.

"...Kuzon said that was the best Home Island Barbeque place on the island."

"The unlimited meat places!" Sokka exclaimed happily.

The tour was rapidly interrupted by Sokka's excitement for endless meat. Aang said the place had done salad and other vegetarian stuff when he'd been there with Kuzon. They all went in and got seats. Sokka was already salivating from the food smells.

Aang politely asked the waiter for his vegetarian options. The man reacted like Aang had whacked him with a wet fish.

"You want vegetarian _options_?" he asked incredulously.

"Eerr…yes?"

"Where have you been, kid? There's rationing all over the islands. I don't even know if we have any vegetables today, let alone _options_."

"There's still unlimited meat, though?" Sokka definitely sounded worried.

"Can't do unlimited meat with the rationing and all, I'm afraid. But if you're a firebender, you get double portions."

Sokka's stomach did a flip, either from hunger or distaste for what he was about to do in the name of more meat. He gamely declared, "I'm a firebender!"

"Then you'll have no trouble lighting this candle again," the man said as he picked up the candle from the table and blew it out. He placed it in front of Sokka, like he was daring him.

"Sure." Sokka was clearly not going to bow to reality when meat was at stake. He pointed his finger at the candle and began kicking Aang under the table.

"Do you have anything that's not meat?" Aang asked, blithely folding his legs underneath him to avoid Sokka's feet.

"Rice, noodles, and I think we've got ocean kumquats," the man responded as he smirked at Sokka, picked up their candle, and relit it himself. "Nice try, kid," he added, giving Sokka a nod.

"See," Aang said, "strictly speaking, the ocean kumquats are actually a meat because they were once alive."

"But they're green. Anything green is a vegetable." The man turned back to Aang with a shrug of his shoulders.

Sokka gestured emphatically in agreement with their waiter.

"Any pickled vegetables?" Aang asked, always the optimist. "You guys used to do this really great pickled…"

"Look, old Kazumi might still have some pickled vegetables." The man sounded like he was taking pity on Aang. "He'll charge you an arm and a leg for them, but if you really need 'em, his shop is on Ozai Square."

The man gave some directions.

"Oh, you mean Fountain square?"

"There's no fountain there now, kid. Ozai had it ripped out and replaced with a statue of himself." The man frowned then muttered, "Really pisses me off." He shook his fist in the statue's direction. "We already know what you look like, scum bucket. We _needed that fountain_."

It felt like Sokka and Katara and Aang were just staring at him, mouths open in surprise. Sokka had been talking to Daddy Muscles about wanting to spy on the Fire Nation and check the mood of the people. Some general in the Earth Kingdom had said people in the Fire Nation were dissatisfied with Ozai. Sokka wanted to find out if it was true while he was mapping the regions for Daddy Muscles. He wanted to see if maybe, perhaps possibly they could find some more allies. But even Sokka clearly wasn't expecting the very first Fire Nation person they met on this island to just come out with how much they hated Ozai right off the bat.

"Yeah, hotman, Ozai's a dick?" Sokka ventured.

"Well, that's certainly the part of his statue that he emphasizes the most, eh? You know what they say about over-compensation?" The man chuckled at his own joke.

There was an awkward silence. Not even Toph was game enough to speculate on Ozai's penis size.

The man seemed to feel a little embarrassed. He clapped his hands together quickly. "Right, vegetable kid, let me help you." He gave Aang some directions and said, "You get your vegetables and bring 'em here, and I'll sauté 'em up nice for ya, no charge."

"Thanks, hotman!"

The man seemed a little confused by being called hotman repeatedly, but he bravely replied, "Good luck in your veggie hunt... hotkid."

-0-

Zuko was sitting on the roof of the orphanage in the dodgy part of the docklands. (He'd fallen back on _bad _habits and had been looking for thugs to beat up.) There, he overheard two harried-looking women arguing over the finances. They were struggling to make ends meet. The children were going hungry.

Zuko knew _all about_ going hungry.

He snuck back home to see how much extra food was stashed away in the palace stores. He felt disappointed but not surprised (the feeling had become very familiar since coming home) at the obscene amount. There was so much here, and those kids had nothing. The solution seemed so simple. And it would have been, without Ty Lee.

"Ty Lee, the kids need vegetables and vitamins and stuff. Can't you carry something useful?"

"Sweets are useful!"

They were arguing in the palace corridors and everyone could hear his plan. Zuko had wanted to be inconspicuous, but subtlety was never his strong suit. Neither was winning arguments.

"Being an orphan is very sad," Ty Lee said. "Sweet things cheer you up when you're feeling gloomy. Your aura is pretty gloomy and depressing now. Would you like one?" She opened her bag prematurely.

"No!"

Zuko stomped off. He hadn't liked the implication that he was more gloomy and depressing than newly orphaned children. Koh's balls, maybe Azula had a point. Zuko didn't want to live in a world where Azula was right.

"Suit yourself. Oooh, this is tasty." Ty Lee followed him, eating loudly.

"Ty Lee, those are for the orphans!" He snatched the bag off her and tossed it to Head Palanquin Bearer Karo.

The palanquin bearers also followed him everywhere. They had been fussing endlessly about what Head Palanquin Bearer Karo called Zuko's 'walking issue'. None of them seemed to know how to react whenever Zuko tried to give them the day off (which was quite often). Shifting in place and smoothing out uniforms seemed to be the common reaction. Karo almost seemed happy when Zuko rudely and abruptly threw food at him, as if this was the treatment he was more comfortable with.

They trooped down together with a palanquin full of food, while Zuko stomped determinedly _beside_ the palanquin and Karo rolled his eyes skywards when he thought no one was looking. Ty Lee, completely oblivious, babbled enthusiastically about how she had never visited an orphanage before. Zuko had never been to an orphanage either, but he didn't want to confess this when they were this far into Operation: Feed the Orphans_. _

Two women answered the door. Zuko presented them with the food for the kids. At first, they didn't seem to know how to react. The orphanage had never had any royal patronage or a royal visitor. One of them decided that flinging herself to the floor into a full kowtow and crying her thanks was the appropriate etiquette. Zuko told her it wasn't necessary. He was just trying to help out. His mother had taught him that making sure his people were fed was what a good prince was supposed to do.

Ty Lee looked around at the squalor when they entered, clearly appalled that so many children lived like this. She had been to the Earth kingdom too, but she'd travelled in luxurious style with his sister. She hadn't seen the things he'd seen. Still, Ty Lee was a natural with kids and began obviously ignoring how 'icky' everything was. Head Bearer Karo couldn't resign himself to the squalor as easily, but at least he stopped making comments about the walking issue.

Ty Lee started doing her circus tricks for the children. The orphans were a tiny and very appreciative audience, and she had always been such a show-pony. In a weird way, she reminded him of Aang with his constant upbeat attitude and his marble trick.

Zuko went to go talk to the two women about what else they needed. There were so many problems in harbour town, but the children suffering from burns seemed to have it the worst.

The women were _trying_, but neither of them were doctors and the nearest clinic was overloaded and couldn't take them. Zuko knew there was a fully equipped luxury clinic inside Caldera City. It was reserved for the nobles, but a royal decree would take care of that.

Zuko requested the palanquin bearers carry some of the injured kids from the orphanage to the clinic. It was practical and it gave them something to _do. _(Something that wasn't looking flustered and following him everywhere while demurring about the walking issue.)

Head Bearer Karo acted like Zuko had asked him to publicly have amorous relations with a whole field of hedgehogs. "You want _us…_ to carry _them_," he asked slowly, looking at the small group of kids. "Not _you_?"

"Yes," Zuko said, trying not to sound like he thought Karo was slow, but it was getting really hard.

"But…but…_why?"_

"They're too little and too injured to walk all the way."

"Your Highness, what will _you_ do?"

"I can walk."

"Your Highness, we have discussed the walking issue…." Head Bearer Karo sighed the sigh of a man who had given up beseeching Agni for patience and was becoming resigned to his fate.

"Yes. We have."

"But it's not…_proper _for a royal to walk," Karo tried for a final time.

"It's also not proper for a royal to ignore the suffering of his people."

_Your father does it easily, _Head Bearer Karo seemed to be saying with his eyes.

"Carry these three kids to the Caldera City Clinic. I'll be right behind!" Zuko said in his most commanding voice, feeling like he was thirteen-years-old and on the Wani again, trying to stand taller and sound older than he was when he ordered Lieutenant Jee to do something and having the old sailor creak his armour in response. Zuko _knew what that creak meant, _so he'd yell because he wanted so desperately to be taken seriously.

Zuko took a breath. He did not yell at Karo. He clenched his fists and stood firm. Head Bearer Karo frowned deeply, but Zuko pretended he didn't sighed, then gestured for the children to get into the palanquin. Zuko went back to the orphanage, satisfied.

"Don't worry, Little Lady," Karo said softly to the youngest girl when he thought Zuko was out of earshot. "No one is going to hurt you." He knelt down in front of her and was incredibly gentle as he helped her into the palanquin.

Back in the main courtyard, Ty Lee had all the children upside-down and doing wall-stands. She was instructing them to keep their toes pointed to the sky and ranting about strength and balance and posture. The children smiled widely.

"See, you're all doing it!" she declared as she ended her lesson. "And now you know there's no problem in the world that can't be solved with a handstand. It turns your frown upside down!"

The kids all bowed to her like she was a wise sifu who said wise things rather than a teenager who blathered about how the blood rushing to her head helped her brain, so she did all her best thinking in a standing backbend.

In Zuko's experience, none of his problems had been solved by handstands or backbends...though, admittedly, he had never tried _hand-standing away_ the problem of "my own father hates me, publicly mutilated me, and has banished me on an impossible quest." In hindsight, doing handstands on the deck of the Wani for three years would have been just as useful as everything else Zuko had tried

"You were always good at doing handstands," Ty Lee observed, as they began the walk back up the hill.

"Are you trying to _turn my frown upside down_?" Zuko mimicked her upbeat and cheerful tone.

"I'm just saying it would be nice to see you smile, that's all," She deliberately ignored his teasing. "You _should_ be happy, but your aura is still this blobby, cloudy, sad blue. It's all _yeurgh_." She stuck her tongue out and made a lethargic jelly-fish motion with her hands to indicate the sad, blobbing nature of his aura.

"Sorry my aura can't be prettier for you."

"It looks better than on the ship, if that helps. On the ship it was just this really gross, dingy grey colour."

"My aura's not dingy!" Zuko huffed. He didn't even believe in auras, but he still wasn't going to take Ty Lee insulting his lightly.

"Not anymore. It's got colour in it again, so that's good. Dark Blue normally means you like helping."

Zuko didn't know what to say to that. He did like helping, but it had always been a bad thing, especially around Dad. Azula had explained that this was his biggest fault and it made him a dumb-dumb, and he was home now and he had to stop doing it. But Ty Lee said it like she didn't think it was a _bad _thing.

"I liked helping those kids too," she said. "Thanks for bringing me."

"You actually brought yourself," he said as he fought a smile.

She didn't think helping orphans was a waste of time. She wasn't acting like she thought he was stupid or saying she wished he was a cabbage. Zuko didn't want to give Ty Lee the wrong idea. He wasn't about to start doing handstands for her or anything.

But she had cheered him up.

-0-

"Why, in the name of all frozen hell, did you join Aang's _class mothers' group_? Why?" Sokka demanded, hands on his hips.

"They were really friendly Sokka," Katara said unapologetically as she took off her fake pregnancy belly with a sigh of relief.

Katara had swanned off to collect Aang from school _hours_ ago, and Toph wasn't saying that she was worried, but she was saying that the last two hours of Sokka's paranoid rantings about how they were in _enemy territory _and _anything _could happen hadn't exactly been relaxing.

"We're here to spy on them," he said. "We're not here to make friends! We don't just _make friends_ with Fire Nation people!"

"Actually, Sokka, it's pretty easy," Aang said. "I've made heaps of Fire Nation friends. You just go up to them and say—"

"Not now, Aang!" Sokka snapped, cutting off what was going to be a very well intentioned, if misguided, set of instructions for making Fire Nation friends. "Isn't it bad enough that Aang is going to school? The last thing we need is you fraternising! They'll realise you're a fake and blow our cover."

"I thought it would be a good thing, considering you told Dad that we would gather information for him. Mothers' groups gossip a lot. I can find out information."

"I promised Dad we'd keep out of trouble."

Toph reckoned that one was on Sokka for making a promise he couldn't keep. Their record for 'keeping out of trouble' was abysmal. But Daddy Muscles also knew this, and had let them go anyway. It was like their father trusted them and believed in them. Weird.

"I am keeping out of trouble," Katara said defensively. "I'm learning about Fire Nation culture. It's actually customary to welcome new mothers to the island. They would think it strange if I _didn't_ attend and then they'd _come here _to check up on me."

Sokka crossed his arms, displeased, but he clearly didn't know enough about the finer details of Fire Nation culture to argue the point.

"The other islands were hit badly by a typhoon," Katara continued. "The mothers' groups are organising relief packages. I'm finding out lots about the nearby Islands. You wanted us to find out about as much terrain as possible."

"That's what the schedule is for! There's no time for this," Sokka grumbled, waving the schedule at her.

"You gave Aang time for school," Katara snapped before abruptly changing tactics. She reached into her basket and uncovered a warm claypot. It was full of something deliciously fragrant and meaty.

"Too bad we won't get any more free meat dishes if I don't go," she lamented sadly, holding the claypot up to better waft the meat smell around the cave. "They think I'm pregnant, so they plan to give me lots of food at every meeting…"

"You can't use free food to win every argument," Sokka said while grabbing the hotpot, even though the 'free meat' strategy clearly worked very well on convincing him to let shenanigans happen.

Katara smirked and sat down next to him, getting out the dinner things. "Besides," she said, "I can't just sit around all day looking at a schedule like you. Aang's got school. Toph's practising her sandbending. This gives me something to do."

If Toph hadn't been blind, she never would have guessed how Sokka's guts squirmed at Katara's words.

"Hey, I do things!" he retorted. "I do lots of things. I do so many things around here."

"Like what?" Katara said with a teasing smile, unaware that she'd actually hurt his feelings.

"Fine. Whatever. Don't listen to me – because people not listening to me always _works out so well_. You guys have no idea how hard it is being right all the time. Something bad will happen. Trust me."

"What?" Aang said curiously. "What's going to happen?"

"I don't know, but something will happen!"

"Your powers of clairvoyance aren't very precise there, Aunt Wu." Katara grinned as she handed out the bowls.

"It's okay, Sokka. Not everyone has the gift," Aang reassured him.

Sokka was sarcastic and funny in response, so no one knew how his guts were squirming on the inside, except Toph.

-0-

The Squidshark class mothers were preparing relief packages for Cyclone-Eye Island. Ichika was gushing about Prince Zuko to Sapphire, their newest member. Hina had been new to the Island once too and had gone out of her way to befriend her. Sapphire was from the colonies and too sweet-natured to tell Ichika to shut it. (It only followed that she was also too soft-hearted to discipline her son properly. The boy had to see the principal on his first day.)

"Feeding the orphans, creating shelters for the homeless, giving medical supplies to all the clinics treating the wounded," Ichika gushed as she sorted small towels. "The boy's a marvel. What will he do next?"

In Hina's opinion, what Prince Zuko should do next was _not be murdered by his father. _

"Nothing, if he knows what's good for him," Hina grumbled at Ichika. "Shame he's not the brightest ember in the bonfire," she added, remembering the bright-eyed little boy who used to follow his big cousin around the palace.

"I think he's actually really smart!" Sapphire retorted, and her face went bright red.

Hina handed her a coconut juice. Poor woman was heavily pregnant and having a hard time adjusting to the heat in the Home Islands. Hina tried her best to keep her new friend hydrated and fed. She was used to serving others and old habits died hard.

"Sapphire," Akari said with a fond smile. "You know, in all the years I worked at the palace, I never heard anyone _ever _describe that boy as smart_."_

While Hina had been in the kitchens, Akari had been in the chambers. They'd both escaped the palace and 'left to visit sick relatives' together three years ago.

"But isn't it a _good thing _that he's helping people?" Sapphire said.

Sapphire had such naive, honest curiosity. Hina wondered again how old she was. She looked like a teenager, but she must have been at least in her late twenties. She obviously had a bit of Northern Earth Kingdom in her.

_They just age different. _That's what Hina had told herself when she was at the front. Otherwise, the people she'd been fighting were just too damn young to be there. They'd looked like they'd barely started shaving, but surely they were adults. Surely they were all much older than they looked.

"She's new," Akari stage whispered. "She'll learn."

Sapphire frowned. "I thought you both liked him."

"I did! I mean I do," Akari quickly amended. "Prince Zuko was a sweet kid, but he's too much like his mother. She liked to do all those charity projects too, and we all know what happened to her."

"What happened to her?"

"Surely even Gaipan heard about the irregularities with Ozai's coronation and the night Firelord Azulon passed and Princess Ursa went _missing_?" Hina asked. She always wondered what propaganda Ozai had told the army on active service in the Earth Kingdom and the colonial cities. They had all been fiercely loyal to Iroh.

Sapphire jumped like a startled rabbiroo whenever they asked her about her life in Gaipan. "No, we just…heard the Firelord changed? What really happened?"

"Ozai offed his wife and his old man to get the crown. She's in the turtleduck pond for sure," Hina said bluntly. She was far enough away from the palace now to say what she really thought.

"Sssh, we can't say that," Akari warned, looking over her shoulder.

"You aren't on the Home Islands anymore, Akari. You can speak your mind here."

"I wouldn't be too sure." Akari lowered her voice, and all the women leaned in. "That man is as cunning as a rat-viper. You can't tell me he doesn't have spies here. A few of us get too _mouthy_, and BAM! He conscripts all our benders."

Last month, all benders from the outer islands had been sent to support General Buijing in securing Omashu. A paranoid feeling swept over the whole group and they squashed closer together. Hina had come to Cherry Island, the Island farthest from the capital, because she foolishly thought it would be safe forever.

Sweet Agni, Akari was right. It was the 41st division all over again.

"We should have had Firelord Iroh," Hina hissed angrily into their conspiratory circle.

"Don't say it too loudly!"

"Did you hear about that awful business on Black Sand Island during the winter?" Ichika whispered. "They lost so many during the Battle for the North Pole. They got mouthy about it, so the Firelord ordered the guards to set fire to all the houses."

"Firelord Azulon did that too," Akari whispered back.

"Yeah, but he used to let people _out _first."

"I don't see what's so bad about saying you don't like Ozai," Sapphire began saying in a normal voice, before the other women all shushed her dramatically.

"Remember the 41st?" Hina reminded her.

Sapphire shook her head.

"Obsidian Valley got _mouthy_, and suddenly all their young men are 'hand-picked' for a special mission, and we all know how that turned out."

Sapphire did not know how that turned out. She hadn't even heard the "training accident" propaganda. Perhaps Firelord Ozai had really good control over the news colonial towns received. No wonder the woman didn't know _anything_ about _anything_. No wonder she didn't seem afraid.

Well, if Sapphire was going to be living here now, and her small son a bender too (A flighty and outspoken boy at that! Oh dear. Outspoken boys had a hard time under Firelord Ozai), she should know exactly what sort of man ruled their islands.

Hina had always been blunt. It was an awful story, and it clearly upset Sapphire to hear it. She was clutching a roll of bandages, eyes shining with tears, and Hina hadn't even gotten to what she considered the worst bit.

"You know what _gets_ me? That man knew exactly what he was going to do to that kid in front of everyone...and he acted like it was a big party. He ordered us to serve _festival_ _snacks_ at the Agni Kai. 'Hey everyone, let's celebrate me publicly butchering my kid and giving every person here nightmares for _years.' Wow, what a great party!_"

"He's evil." Sapphire's voice cracked a little, and she wiped her eyes fiercely.

"He did all that to his own kid just cause he was _mouthy,_ you see," Akari said in a low voice. "And no one else got _mouthy_ after that. 'Cause when that man stone-cold mutilated his own kid in front of everyone for 'talking outta turn', everyone decided to shut up. Ozai don't like _mouthy_ and he don't like _charity_. If Prince Zuko knows what's good for him, he'll sit down, shut up, and agree his father is right about everything. "

"Akari!" Ichika looked at their friend in surprise.

"I'm not saying I _agree_ with the malevolent scorch mark. I'm just saying that's the smartest course of action if that boy wants to live to see his next birthday and not end up in the turtleduck pond with his mother."

"What do you mean his mother is in the turtleduck pond?" Sapphire could reign in her curiosity no longer. "You both keep saying it."

Hina shrugged. "It's just a rumour."

"Ozai didn't let anyone go in there not long after Lady Ursa disappeared, see," Akari hissed quietly with her usual amount of paranoia. "He had that pond boarded up. People think it's because the pond is where he's hiding all the bodies."

"That's not what happened," Ichika said firmly.

"Don't tell me you believe the 'she swanned off to have an affair with an actor' propaganda," Akari scoffed. "Remember all those 'I'm happy, healthy and alive' posters the Firelord put up around the capital?" She elbowed Hina.

"It was like he was announcing she's dead for sure," Hina agreed, "but with reverse psychology, daring someone to say _there's no way that woman would have left those kids with that man."_

"I just can't see Firelord Ozai making the effort to dump a body in the pond himself," Ichika said with all the certainty that listening to years of gossip had given her. "He seems a little lazy. He probably incinerated her body with his bending so no one will ever find it. Honestly, the sooner he dies and we can have Prince Zuko on the throne, the better." She added the last few bottles of medicine. "He's of age in two years."

"I wouldn't say that too loudly," Hina warned her. "The man's already killed his own wife and father. What do you think he's going to do to the son everyone likes more than him?"

-0-

"_You could choose to be very useful to your people, to work at making a better world...or you can sit in a palace and mope like a spoiled brat," _Jeong Jeong had said all those months ago.

Zuko had been sulking like a brat when he first got home, but he felt the wily old deserter pushing him forward, urging him to do better.

Sela had said not to dwell on your loss and heartache. Sometimes you just had to move forward and make the best of it. She was right. He missed Katara and his uncle and his friends all the way down to his soul, but dwelling and moping and staring at incomprehensible haikus wasn't doing any good. Wallowing in his sadness had never gotten him anywhere.

Yugoda's wisdom was there too. Zuko remembered her fondly, thinking of her soft and kind voice as she showed him her precious healing book. _We can all do little things to make the world a better place, _Yugoda had told him.

So he started with the little things. He wasn't summoned by his father and ordered to stop, so he kept going. Since Zuko started helping around Harbour Town, his bending felt stronger. Perhaps this time helping people was going to be more effective than beating up bullies for getting his full range of bending back.

Zuko wasn't meant to be idle. He'd always had to struggle and fight. He just needed something to fight for. Ozai didn't give a crap about the people, but Zuko did. He could fight for them and do his best to make their lives a little better and brighter.

Zuko went to find out who was the Domestic Guardian now. It was traditionally a member of the royal family, but their family had shrunk to just three people. It was an important, if boring job. It was overseeing all the day-to-day administration of the nation: making sure volcanoes were inspected, schools could offer free firebending lessons, the potholes got filled. That kind of thing.

Zuko found out the post had been vacant for over a year. The cracks were beginning to show, not just in Harbour Town, but all over the Fire Nation. Ozai trusted no one and refused to appoint a new guardian. Before that, his father had been through eighteen domestic guardians in eighteen months. Fifteen of these poor saps had 'disappeared' and the other three had 'fallen on their swords'. Now, no one would touch it. Not even the most avid butt-kissers wanted the job.

Zuko asked Azula what was happening about all the potholes over breakfast. He always ate with his sister. Ozai wouldn't poison her.

"More accidents on the roads, I assume. Father is busy focusing on the war. He doesn't have time for petty people's quibbles. It's just easier to leave the post vacant and let people sort out their own problems."

"But someone is meant to fill the potholes."

"Well, why don't you go find that person and bother them." Azula gave a dismissive wave of her hand. Then she suddenly looked up from her scroll, her eyes narrowing. "Why are you asking? You're not considering volunteering for the job, are you?" She gave an incredulous chuckle.

He clenched his fists and looked away.

"Zuzu, why do you always insist on making life so difficult for yourself? Just relax and enjoy the royal life."

"_I can't!_ I need something to _do_."

"You want to waste your time filling potholes and feeding orphans?"

"Yes."

"You really are an idiot." She tsked and turned back to her scroll.

Mai and Ty Lee arrived to spy on him a short time later. It was Mai's day to spy, but Ty Lee had come along because she wanted to hang out with her friend.

Mai had the servants set up a tea table and bring the food out to them in the garden. She ordered them around with a bored, well-practised air of someone used to being obeyed. She was used to saying she wanted something and having it appear almost instantly. Zuko envied that.

"Mai, Ty Lee, can I ask you two something?" he asked.

The girls looked up from their conversation.

"If you needed to get a complete maniac to give you something you wanted...what would you do?"

"Are you talking about your father or your sister?" Mai asked with a raise of her eyebrow.

"Mai! Azula's not that bad!" Ty Lee said quickly, and looked around anxiously for a second before she turned back to Zuko. "If I wanted to get Azula to do something for me, I'd just compliment her a whole bunch, and I treat her real nice and tell her she's the best. Sometimes I play with her shiny shiny hair and make it look pretty."

"Well, I don't think that's going to help me," Zuko said dryly.

"You could try being nicer to her," Ty Lee suggested.

Zuko snorted loudly to show what he thought of that suggestion. "How would you get my father to cooperate?"

Ty Lee recoiled a little from his question and scrunched up her nose. "Oh, Zuko, your father…I wouldn't try asking your father for anything, honey-bunny. His aura is just this"—she shuddered theatrically—"it's a mess, a roiling, gross, angry, violent, scary mess...you know."

Zuko turned to Mai, hoping her advice would be more helpful.

It wasn't.

"I agree with Ty Lee. Roiling mess. Don't go there."

"What is even the point of having you two spy on me if you can't help me out?" Zuko harrumphed.

"Zuko, helping the person you're spying on isn't the point of spying," Mai informed him flatly.

"Yeah, honey-bunny. _Helping_ is like a totally different vibe to _spying. _I would help you if I could, but you want to ask Firelord Ozai for something – and like, there is no helping _that_!"

-0-

"You've been looking for a way to punish him," Azula said to her father. "It's perfect for Zuko. It's dull, monotonous, tedious and degrading work. And, given how he perpetually makes mistakes and how impatient he is, telling the people that his mismanagement is the reason for all their woes will be easy..."

Azula needed her human shield to last longer than a week. She had been encouraging Father to have patience and choose a _creative solution_. The navy was not obsolete yet, and the airship fleet was not finished. Those men were still important and, right now, they were fascinated by her brother. Most people were. His charitable ridiculousness was an entertaining spectacle.

The punishment couldn't be too obvious.

The solution Zuko handed her was perfect.

Dad would get the satisfaction of punishing his son in an unusual way. The outer islanders were still insolent. They had _not_ calmed down in the time she had been away, like Father assumed they would. Zuko would provide a suitable target for their anger.

Zuko would get what he wanted. Hopefully, this would make him finally stop bitching. He'd be terrible as guardian. It was the most boring thing on the planet. It was even more boring than long concertos. He'd never have the patience for it. He'd screw up royally, make an even bigger spectacle of himself, and Azula would look even better in comparison.

"Hhhhmmm," Father said. "I'll consider it."

Azula knew that was a yes.

That night, Azula waited for Zuko to sneak back in. He'd snuck out again. The _Incredible Disappearing Prince_ was his favourite game at the moment. Azula used to be able to tell where Zuko was by his stomping footsteps. Now, she didn't hear him slide back into his room until she saw his shadow move. She waited a moment until he had relaxed.

"The bastard reason," Azula rasped from the darkness, mostly just to startle him.

Zuko gave a frightened yelp. "Azula! You scared the shit out of me!"

"Don't swear!"

Mum had raised them both to use more refined language than that! Azula didn't like hearing Zuko swear. It made him sound…not like her brother, but like some common guttersnipe from the docks.

"Why are you lurking in the dark? Is it just to scare the shit out of me?" Zuko asked, deliberately swearing again. He was petulant. Impossible. Azula didn't know why she put up with him.

"No. I came to tell you something important that could be crucial to your ongoing survival. But you're being rude now, so I wont bother." She turned to leave.

"Wait. What did you want to tell me?"

"You have to apologise to me first," Azula informed him primly. "For swearing."

"Apologise to you?" Zuko snorted in amusement. "Fine. I apologise if I have causeth any offence by uttering such indecorous language around thy illustrious personage " He bowed in an overly elaborate fashion.

Azula recognised his little speech. It was from one of those ludicrous, sentimental old-fashioned plays Mother had loved. He was being ridiculous. She shouldn't be amused in the slightest. She shouldn't be trying to remember what the next line was.

"Away, thou sodden-witted fool! Thou hast no more brains than I have elbows!" Azula declared triumphantly after a beat.

_Take that!_ She'd been to all those plays too. Zuko seemed surprised at her response. His scowl fell away for a second and the rigid hostility dropped from his posture. He relaxed a little, sat on the bed, and started taking off his shoes.

"What did you want to tell me?" he asked.

"That your feet stink."

He threw a sock at her. She set it on fire. That sock would never rise from the shame and ashes of defeat. The other sock would always be lonely and mismatched forever. Zuko rolled his eyes.

"You said 'the bastard reason' when I came in. Was there anymore you wanted to add or was that it?" He sighed like _he_ was the one putting up with _her. _

Azula hesitated for a second, but then decided to tell him anyway. She was pragmatic. He should know this if he hoped to last more than a week around their father. "When you're dealing with Father, you just have to think of the most bastard reason for wanting something done and then plead your case using that."

"Excuse me?"

"You want to feed orphans, fine. Here's how you do it _officially_ and get it past Father,"

Zuko looked up, interested.

Oh Agni, he probably did want to feed orphans again. Idiot.

"You can't say nonsense like 'it's the right thing to do', or 'Poor little things, they're so hungry' to the Firelord. Father doesn't care about that." Azula explained. "You've got to say, 'So they can grow to become strong, loyal soldiers who would never question the loyalty they owe to the country that feeds them.' That's _the bastard reason._ That'll be the one Father wants to hear."

Zuko nodded, seeing the sense in her advice. He looked at her for a long moment, raising his good eyebrow. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Just for future reference. You're going to need it," she said ominously, so it sounded like a threat. "Dad is going to make you the Home Guardian tomorrow. Pretend you don't want it."

"What did you do?"

"You wanted this, right?" Azula said, turning the question back at him.

He nodded.

"Then I did you a favour. You should say thank you."

Her idiot brother looked at her in a way that reminded her of Uncle looking at a Pai Sho board. Clearly, he'd spent _way _too long at sea with His Royal-Tea-Loving-Kookiness. He smiled slightly at her.

"Thank you."

-0-

Notes:

Huge thank you to Boogum who is the most wonderful and amazing beta in the world!


	6. The headband part 1

Zuko wanted to fix _everything. _But after a whole morning of sitting in an office trying to think of bastard reasons, while his father's guards watched him with beady little eyes, he had to get out and get some fresh air and perspective.

The girls and the guards followed him. Zuko huffed. Mai glanced at him. He rolled his eyes at the guards. Mai smirked at Ty Lee. Ty Lee nodded. A decision was reached.

They slipped the guards with what Zuko considered _low-level fuss_. (He didn't know what the girls were going on about. He didn't cause drama everywhere he went!) They headed down to the docks. Zuko didn't really have a destination in mind, he just knew that place was crawling with hedgehog-fuckers. Perhaps one of them could provide bastard reason inspiration.

Some lecherous asshole from the first tavern they passed leered at the girls in a way Zuko hated. Before he could do anything, Ty Lee chi-blocked him. His cronies got angry. It became a full-on bar brawl that ended with Ty Lee and Mai smiling at a huge pile of chi-blocked or pinned bodies before them.

"Let this be a lesson to you," Ty Lee said brightly. "Girls don't like that." She flounced back over to Zuko. "That was fun. Where should we go now?"

"_We're _not going anywhere. You two should go back to the Caldera."

These two would attract attention down here, and that was the last thing Zuko wanted.

"No," Mai said flatly. "We have to follow you. Besides, this is an interesting type of awful." She surveyed the dodgy docklands street, and though her expression did not change, her voice took on a disdainful tone. "People really live like this?"

Zuko pointed dramatically up the hill. "Look over there! Is that Azula in a brightly sequinned tutu?"

Mai and Ty Lee _looked._

Of course they did.

Zuko used their distraction to escape. Just because his father and Azula wanted to spy on him, didn't mean that Zuko was going to make it easy for them. He was starting to hate being watched all the time_._

He ducked down the nearest alley and quickly ascended to the roof. He jumped over the rooftops to the working part of the port. It was full of men looking for welding work refitting ships. The working conditions weren't safe. But even despite the accidents, every morning there would be a queue of firebenders, mostly ex-navy sailors, looking for work. Zuko blended into the crowd.

"What, you hedgehog-fuckers think I can't bend now?" an angry voice said from the front of the queue. "I'm the best welder you've got."

"We only need able-bodied men today. You know the rules," the foreman said and turned away.

Jee looked bitterly disappointed and swore under his breath as he began walking away. His gait was uneven. He had a new wooden leg that he was clearly still getting used to, but he still gamely gave indignant striding his best shot. Zuko followed him a few steps before tapping him on the shoulder. Jee whipped round, fists up in a bending pose.

"Lieutenant Jee," Zuko said, bowing in salute.

"Koh's balls! Prince Zuko?"

-0-

Jee had lost his left foot to frostbite after the Siege of the North. He lost his honour when the Firelord repeatedly shamed the navy for the failure and cancelled the pensions. He lost his hope when he couldn't find steady work back home. He lost his pride when he had to move in with his daughter, knowing that extra mouths meant sinking deeper into poverty.

Now he was sitting in a home-island barbeque restaurant, across from Prince Fucking Zuko, his old baby captain. Jee was aware he was just staring, but his eyes were definitely playing tricks on him. He'd finally cracked. He must be a few boats short of an armada. He had fallen into some sort of bizarrely realistic hallucinogenic stupor, because this couldn't be real. Prince Zuko was smiling at him because they'd found each other—that was crazy.

Now, Prince Zuko was being concerned about what had happened to the rest of the crew.

Now, he was visibly relieved when Jee told him they'd all been alive the last time he'd seen them.

Now, he was offering Jee a job and buying him lunch.

_What the fuck?_

Jee really needed a firewhiskey.

"But … it's not even midday?" Prince Zuko said with a scrunch of his nose.

"It's mid-afternoon in the Earth Kingdom."

"We're in the Fire Nation."

"Yes, we are. You always were a wizz at geography," Jee said, and re-adjusted his tunic pointedly. Jee had once been an expert at creaking his armour just so. He could make his armour creak consolingly, angrily and sarcastically. There had been a whole emotional spectrum to his armour creaks. Now he had to settle for derisively adjusting his buttons.

Zuko made a familiar annoyed face at him. Yes! He was annoyed. Finally, proof that Jee wasn't going crazy. Zuko had always understood the armour creaks.

"So, Geography Wizz," Jee said, "I'm sure it hasn't escaped your notice that you are actually in the dodgiest part of the docklands. You lost?"

"I know where I am," Prince Zuko insisted, sounding cross. It was as if getting lost was a slight on his honour.

"I'm just saying, I'm meant to be here, but you're royalty. I hear you got your honour back and everything. You're meant to be sitting on your arse in the palace, living the life you always wanted."

Zuko groaned and put his head in his hands melodramatically.

"Listen, Prince Zuko, if you are running from your fancy, privileged life of luxury to the dodgy part of the city, take my advice. You're running in the _wrong _direction."

"Two firewhiskeys, please." Zuko looked up from his folded arms. He'd asked the waiter _nicely. _He'd said _please_. He was drinking now? Jee was officially worried. Should he say something? Should he kick up a fuss and say Zuko was just a kid and firewhiskey was strong stuff and it wasn't even midday?

"If you're having one, I'm having one," Zuko said defensively.

Well, Zuko wasn't _his kid_. It wasn't Jee's place to act like his dad. The kid had survived the Siege of the North. If he wanted to do some normal teenage rebellion and have a firewhiskey, who was Jee to stop him?

"Fair enough," Jee said with a shrug, indicating that he wasn't going to argue with Zuko about this.

"I was kind of expecting more push-back on that." Zuko tilted his head quizzically.

"I don't have much fight left in me, Prince Zuko," Jee confessed.

"What happened to you, Lieutenant Jee?" Zuko asked, sounding like he actually gave a shit. That was a surprise.

"I'm not a lieutenant anymore. Dishonourable discharge."

"Sorry to hear that, sir."

"Don't call me sir, either."

"What should I call you then?"

"Just Jee is fine."

"What happened to you, Jee? Really?"

"Usual sad ex-seadog story…"

Jee took a long sip. Zuko copied him, then grimaced and coughed explosively and gave his firewhiskey a very offended glare. Jee wordlessly moved it away from the prince as he relayed his tale of woe.

Zuko looked dismayed when Jee was finished. "So, this has happened to lots of people?"

"Yeah. Your father cutting off everyone's pensions was a huge blow, especially for the injured. I'm luckier than most. I can live with my daughter and I get a bit of welding work … but some of the other lads had to start sleeping rough. Storm season's been terrible for 'em. Poor bastards."

"I just …this isn't meant to happen here," Zuko insisted, sounding flummoxed. "There's so much wealth in the Fire Nation. People shouldn't be homeless here."

Jee had forgotten he was _so young_.

"Yeah, but those riches don't get shared, do they? You nobles just turn up your noses and say, 'What does it matter? They're just peasants. They're used to it.' We're all just disposable catapult fodder to you lot. Nothing more."

Jee didn't sugar-coat it. He downed the rest of the prince's drink angrily.

"Not to me!"

Jee paused and looked at that remarkable scar and remembered General Iroh's tale.

Oh. right.

Jee had been at sea when it happened. He'd only heard the official propaganda account about a training accident. He couldn't help feeling a flutter of anger in his belly. What the hell kind of father did that to their kid?

"Okay, maybe not to you," Jee said in a more conciliatory tone. "But look around, Your Highness. Look at the shortages. Yet Upper Caldera is overflowing with food. We starve and suffer down here while the nobles live the sweet life."

"Just like Ba Sing Se," Prince Zuko said softly, his good eye widening in realisation.

Jee gave a dismissive shrug. "Never been. I've got no opinion on the place. I only know how it is here."

"I've been made Home Guardian now," Zuko said, without preamble. "I want to make the Fire Nation a better place, and I need you to help me."

Jee started choking on his fireflake dusted chicken skewer.

"I'm serious_,_" Prince Zuko insisted, though it wasn't necessary. He was always serious. "I want to make people's lives better, you know, and use my royal position for something good. I need an honest advisor, someone who knows what the people need and will tell me the truth and can think like a bastard."

"And you think this honest advisor is going to be me? Why do you want me?"

Jee was a salty, wounded, mouthy ex-lieutenant who had been assigned to Zuko's ship as punishment for insubordination. He'd never been kind or warm to the kid. He could see why Zuko would assume he'd fill the 'think like a bastard' criteria. But aside from that, surely there was somebody better? Somebody fancier? More educated? Someone who hadn't called the kid a disrespectful tosser to his face?

"You were always honest with me," Zuko said, which was a very diplomatic take on all of their squabbles on the ship. "You always told me when you thought I was wrong. I need that."

"I think your advisor has to be someone from nobility," Jee ventured. He was sure that was a rule.

"Why would I want advice from some upper-class twatface who's never washed a dish in his life?" Prince Zuko said with a tremendous (and surprising) amount of disdain for people who didn't wash their own dishes.

"So that's where you've been since you disappeared from the Wani? Washing dishes somewhere?"

It had always bothered Jee, the way the prince had just disappeared that night. General Iroh had been frantic. They'd searched everywhere, but never found him. Had the prince absconded to fulfil some deep, dishwashing need?

Zuko looked around, like he was checking that no one was listening. "Actually, I was a waiter in a tea shop for a while."

"Nah. You? Working in customer service? But you're the rudest person I've ever met." Jee laughed long and loud at the mental image of Prince Zuko dealing with disgruntled customers. Best joke he'd heard in years.

"Jeez, why don't you tell me what you really think, Jee!" Zuko harrumphed back at him, crossing his arms. Suddenly his face lit up. "See, this is why I need you. You insult me to my face!"

Prince Zuko liked being insulted to his face?

He really was different now.

Jee sat back and studied him for a second. He was a kid, clearly a bit lost, but very sincere in his desire to make the world better. (Also, sincere about his desire to be insulted to his face. Weird.) And he was offering to pay Jee well. There were far worse things Jee could be doing.

"When do I start?"

-0-

"I'll only say this once. On-Ji is my girlfriend!"

Well, that had been a lie.

Hide had now told Aang at least twenty-four times. But On-Ji kept trying to be Aang's friend anyway. Aang knew that annoyed the other boy, but Aang liked On-Ji. She was kind and funny and pretty … and _simple._

Everything with Katara was so complicated. Aang was sick of feeling like having a crush on someone was so hard. Pretending to be Kuzon and just chatting with On-Ji was surprisingly easy.

They walked home from school together with a group of kids. Aang walked next to On-Ji and let the other kids walk ahead. She started apologising for Hide's behaviour.

"What do you even see in that guy?" Aang asked. "Why would you want someone like that as a boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend," On-Ji said, and looked down sadly. "We were never going out."

"Why don't you tell him to back off?"

"I don't want to hurt his feelings," On-Ji whispered.

Aang was pretty sure that Katara hadn't wanted to hurt his feelings either. That was why she had never told him directly that she didn't like him as a boyfriend. Aang wondered if he would have been better off if she had. She must have known he liked her.

"Well, sometimes feelings get hurt," Aang said bluntly. "But being honest with him has to be better, I think."

Katara should have told him before she started kissing Zuko. Or Zuko should have told him. Either way, someone should have told him.

"Just tell Hide you don't want anything to do with him, and..."

"But I do!"

Aang gaped at On-Ji in disbelief. On-Ji liked Hide? Gross. And weird. The monks always said romantic love was strange and blind (and to be avoided).

"Not like _that_," she said quickly. "It's just … our parents are friends and we grew up together. We used to be close. But everything changed when he got a crush on me around the winter festival." She bit her lip and looked down at her toes. "Everyone expected that I'd feel the same way, because he's normally a really great guy … and _I tried … _but I just see him as a brother."

"Oh."

"This is going to sound stupid, but I kind of … miss him. I miss my friend," On-Ji continued sadly. "I just hate how awkward it is between us."

Katara probably missed the way things used to be, too.

Aang knew he did.

On-Ji, more than Guru Pathik or Avatar Yangchen, made Aang really want to let his crush go. He didn't want to be like Hide. If the end result of hanging on to his crush was being a possessive jerk who made Katara feel bad, made her feel the way Hide made On-Ji feel, then Aang wanted no part of it.

_You have to let her go…_

If it were possible for memories to sound smug, Aang was sure he heard it in the Guru's voice.

He turned back to On-Ji, who was still looking sadly at the sand. He should try to cheer her up and find a way to avoid fights with Hide. "If you don't want it to be awkward," Aang said, "you could just tell him you don't like me at all? Then he won't start picking fights and yelling about being your boyfriend in the school yard." He gave her shoulder a playful jostle. "Just tell him you'd sooner kiss a stink slug than me."

"But that wouldn't be true," On-Ji said quietly, and she stopped walking. She blushed redder than the red on her Fire Nation school uniform and stared at his feet.

Oh.

Aang was sure he was blushing the same shade. He stared at her feet. Then they were both just standing there, staring at each other's feet and going redder and redder and redder under the hot Fire Nation sun.

Someone should really do something or say something.

Aang thought that he was meant to be that someone, given that was how conversations normally worked. People took turns speaking. On-Ji had the last turn, so really it was his turn now.

She _liked _him? She wanted to _kiss _him?

The idea felt soft and squishy and wriggly in his stomach, like the moment of exhilaration when he caught a thermal air current. Aang had no experience with kissing aside from the times Katara kissed his cheek. So that's what he did.

"Holy smokes," On-ji jittered and held her hand to her cheek. "Wow."

Aang's thoughts exactly.

-0-

"There's … a lot to sort through," Jee said and pointedly adjusted his buttons.

They both surveyed the room, piled high with urgent requests, some of them months old. It was testament to the fact that his father was actually crap at his job.

"Your buttons are fine," Zuko scolded, even though not many people understood the language of Jee's clothing mishaps. Still, Jee had been demoted for insubordination at least four times before he ended up on Zuko's ship, and now he was using his buttons to imply Ozai couldn't Firelord right. That was super-mega-insubordination right there.

"Let's just get to work," Zuko sighed.

They began sorting into a rough system of categories.

**Easy to fix **(Things that Zuko would have enough authority to pass on his own as home guardian.)

**Can I think of a boring bastard reason for this?** (These would need Ozai to review them.)

Jee had already figured out a solution. "I've had plenty of superior officers who were terrible. They were complete hedgehogfuckers who, you know"—Jee smoothed out his entire tunic and coughed, and Zuko knew what that meant—"detail works well. Overload it with so much detail that he gets bored just looking at the preamble. He'll pass them sooner than read through that."

Zuko nodded along before he realised something. "Wait, was this why your reports used to feature eight page descriptions of puffingull migratory patterns?"

"Only in the beginning." Jee had the decency to look a little sheepish. "I stopped because you actually read through it all."

Zuko had amassed a great deal of completely random, useless knowledge about oceans, coastlines, and the history of navigation points because of Jee's reports. He'd read through them all because he was thirteen and had no idea what he was doing, and he wanted to be a strong captain and know everything. He'd even entertained the idea that Jee had been trying to _help_. When Jee started writing short reports after a year, Zuko had assumed the tacit teaching was ending because he _knew enough_ to be a good captain.

But no, Jee had done it because he thought Zuko was terrible and had been trying to bore him into submission.

"Sorry I was a horrible captain for you," Zuko said, remembering with shame the overbearing way he'd treated Jee.

"You weren't at your best," Jee said with a dismissive wave, like Zuko's many failings as captain didn't matter. "But neither was I. I could've been more patient with you."

Suddenly, Jee reached out his hand for Zuko's shoulder. Zuko stared at it, shocked and appalled. Jee stared at his own hand, as if he was also surprised where it had gone, like he'd acted on impulse and hadn't thought it through. Jee's hand hovered awkwardly above his shoulder for a moment before he brushed a bit of lint off. Zuko let out an internal sigh of relief, because for a moment he thought Jee had been about to try and hug him, and he'd gotten used to dodging that kind of thing from Aang (mostly without success) and he'd never expected surprise hugs from Jee of all people.

**Super duper extra bastard reason **(This pile was for anything involving the military or navy because he would need his father's explicit permission. Meaning he would actually need to see Ozai, and his bastard reason needed to be super duper extra bastard and convincing.)

**SNAFU for anything weird involving spirits** (Zuko did not have time for pissed off spirits right now.)

**Water fountains?** (Ozai had inexplicably removed the fresh water fountains from most of the towns and installed inconveniently huge statues of himself everywhere. More than eighty urgent requests from villages needing their fountains back.)

Zuko had a brief moment to wonder what his grandmother, the ever meticulous Firelady Ilah, would have thought of Ozai's statues and his lazy as a sloth-cat work ethic. She'd been Home Guardian for over fifty years. She ran a very tight ship. Ilah and Azulon had actually installed more than half these fountains. Azulon had been famous for making sure every Fire Nation town had access to fresh water.

It almost seemed like Ozai had ripped out all of the fountains as a 'screw you' to his own father.

Jee made an offended sort of gasp and wrinkled his nose at the page in his hand. Offending Jee took effort. Jee was the one who taught him hedgehog-fucker after all.

"What is it?" Zuko asked.

"Nothing, Your Highness. You don't want—"

Zuko snatched it off him.

Ugh.

Ew.

Gross!

Flaming balls. Ozai had commissioned a design of a statue with fire coming out of _that appendage. _And he still hadn't paid the designer, which wasn't the big issue here, except that it kind of _was_ because it was a dick move. It was also why the designer had petitioned the Home Guardian for payment two years ago. Whoever had been Home Guardian then had probably been too busy _falling on his sword _to sort it out_. _Zuko would have never seen this cursed image if Ozai had paid his bills on time.

"Look away, child, look away," Jee said as he took the offending image from Zuko, but he seemed at a loss to know what to do with it. It couldn't be neatly filed into any of their categories.

"That's ... that's not …" Zuko blushed and clenched his fists, steeling himself to ask the question. If he was old enough to be Home Guardian, he was old enough to know the answer. He wished Uncle had told him about this during the horrible, no-good, mortifying talk in Ba Sing Se. But Uncle hadn't, and Zuko hadn't thought to ask, hadn't even known it was something he should ask.

"That's not physically possible, is it?"

"Fuck no," Jee answered shortly.

Thank goodness. Zuko breathed a sigh of relief.

"You were only a kid when you came on the ship," Jee stated, giving Zuko the calculating side-eye, which was never a good sign. "Your Uncle, he told you about … you know … about ..." Now Jee was going red and looking away, and that was a really bad sign.

"About what?" Zuko asked.

"You know … when there is a delicate flower and the gardener wants to _pluck _it?"

Angi-damnit! This again!

Stupid Flower Friends and their stupid flower proverbs!

Though it made sense that Jee was also a Flower Friend, because he and Uncle were always playing Pai Sho. He was looking at Zuko expectantly, like he wanted Zuko to say one of the stupid flower proverbs.

"He told me about how the sunflower grows in the dirt and likes the sun_, _and the moonlily dresses in darkness but the lotus is lifted high above the swamp and, and"—Zuko tried remembering the one from the stupid note—"all flowers like to spread their seeds, even if they spread their seeds sideways or to the west or whatever?" Zuko guessed all the stupid Flower Friend phrases he could remember and made the big eyes at Jee, hoping Jee would cut him some slack.

Jee's face took on the expression that was normally reserved for being given latrine duty. He looked at the ceiling and muttered 'why me' under his breath, but Zuko still heard. Zuko didn't think that was fair. He never asked the Flower Friends to speak to him in nothing but cryptic gibberish—that was their choice! It was a _decision_ they had made. They all knew how to use normal words and instead they chose to blah blah about flowers.

"When a young man ..." Jee paused, then muttered mostly to himself, "Koh's sweaty balls, what would your uncle say?"

"Stupid flower proverbs?" Zuko offered, trying to be helpful.

Jee looked around the room, vaguely panicked as he searched for the right words. " When a young man _blossoms," _he said at last, "and a young lady—or another young man, I guess—they also _blossom _and they want to, you know, put their blossoms together to make more blossoms, or maybe they just want to experiment, or you know, there's a tulip and a firelily and they think they've been hanging around in the garden together for a long time and they want to take their relationship to the next level—"

"Like a terrace?"

"What?"

"The next level in a garden," Zuko explained. "It would have to be a terraced garden to have multiple levels."

Zuko was lost in this conversation. He didn't have any kind of map to this conversation. He wasn't sure Jee knew where he was going either, because Jee looked really _thrown _by the terrace thing, but he was the one who brought up landscaping in the first place.

"What are _you _talking about?" Jee asked, completely confused.

"What are _you_ talking about?"

"Look, I'm not good at being cryptic and stuff. Did your uncle tell you about _intimate relations?" _

"You were trying to explain sex to me with flower weirdness!"

Zuko didn't know what offended him more, the fact that Jee thought he was still that innocent or the fact that if Jee ever was in the position to give a sex talk, he would go about it through bizzare terraced garden metaphor.

"Don't shout," Jee made a pacifying gesture with his hands.

"Jee, you surely can't think I spent three years on the _Wani_ and emerged without knowing about sex. You lot were always talking about who you were "doing the squelchy" with, and Karo would get drunk and tell you all about …"

"Wait! You heard that?" Jee interrupted, giving him a strange look.

Oops. Zuko had forgotten he wasn't meant to know the things he overheard when he was Blue-Spiriting about the place.

"No?"

Jee did not look convinced. Jee looked alarmed. He also looked like he was remembering all the _other_ things he and the crew used to say about Zuko when they thought he couldn't hear them. None of that was very flattering and it had hurt when Zuko had been thirteen … but he'd been hit several times with an icy-spike whip in the intervening period and that had hurt more_,_ so he didn't hold any of it against Jee now.

But Jee didn't know that. Jee looked like he was internally debating the merits of apologising versus _not going there_ after this garbage fire of a conversation.

"Look," Jee said, "I propose we pay this poor guy, burn the offending image, and pretend this never happened."

Zuko agreed readily, because no one should have to suffer seeing the offending image.

He suddenly wanted to leave this office very much. He felt like things would be less awkward if they were going somewhere or doing something. In lieu of a proper plan, Zuko often chose forward momentum. It was preferable to just standing around and feeling awkward about the fact that they both knew what kind of awful names Jee had called Zuko when he'd been a stomping baby captain.

"How about we go to a school?" Zuko suggested.

"Why?"

"There's lots of different requests from schools, especially about the older firebending lessons. I never got to … you know, finish school."

It felt crazy to say it now. School broke up for the spring festival holidays when Zuko was thirteen, and then Zuko just never went back. Now he was Home Guardian, and he had to make decisions about schools, but he didn't even understand the questions. He didn't want to make a mistake.

"I think we should investigate so we get a clearer picture," Zuko said.

Jee nodded and they started to walk out of the palace. The guards materialised from the shadows and followed, but Zuko ignored them as best he could. If he were on his own, he could evade them, but with Jee's leg, it was impossible.

"Firelord Ozai cancelled the free firebending sessions in schools," Jee said as they walked, "but lots of schools would probably like to offer them again for, you know, obvious reasons." The obvious reason being that untrained benders were more likely to accidentally set their school on fire or burn themselves. Schools generally liked to avoid both these things. "I think that's why they are sending requests."

"But they're just part of school," Zuko spluttered. No one had ever told Zuko firebending lessons were optional. If Ozai was going to get rid of them, he may as well cancel the part of school where you had to sit in a desk and learn things while he was at it.

The children had been very excited to have a royal visitor in their school. They had shown Zuko their noodle art (which he praised), bombarded him with questions (which he tried to answer as best he could), and recited the pledge of allegiance to him (which made his skin crawl a little).

All children were made to pledge allegiance to the Fire Nation everyday. Zuko had done so as a child. He'd been too young to understand what he was even saying, and just mindlessly repeated the words. He never thought to question it. It wasn't Dai Li brainwashing-level bad, but it still made Zuko very uncomfortable when he thought about it.

Zuko and Jee discussed the best way to reinstate the program with the firebending teachers. He promised all of the schools that he would release the money and they could start free classes again right away, but they had to teach some changes to the curriculum in exchange…

-0-

Sokka and Katara had been summoned to the principal's office. Again!

Aang had a hard time controlling his sparks at school, but he had made friends with some firebending kid called Shoji, who had enough control to put out any small blazes Aang made. However, Shoji had done nothing to stop Aang hurtling a fireball at his bully. In fact, it sounded like Shoji had started chanting 'fight' and encouraging this mess.

Stupid Shoji.

Shoji was a bad influence on all of them, Sokka decided. Now Sokka had to step up his disciplining dad act. He actually heard himself saying, "If Shoji jumped off a cliff, would you do it?", even though Aang would just say something like, "I was going to jump off the cliff anyway 'cause I'm an airbender and we love jumping off high things. Wheeee!"

Aang confessed that the fireball had been a total accident. Sokka didn't know if this made things better or worse. They sat before the principal, who was giving them all the sternest-looking scolding-eyeballs Sokka had ever received in his life. (And he'd lived with Katara and Gran Gran.)

"What would you say is your son's bending level?" the principal asked evenly.

"Well, he's only just started firebending," Katara answered quickly.

"As I suspected," the principal said with a nod. "Thankfully, you have arrived here at a fortuitous time. I do not know if you are aware, but Prince Zuko has just reinstated the free bending lessons for all school children, as well as significant curriculum changes for the next school year."

Katara squeezed her hands tightly together at the mention of her boyfriend's name, and looked up keenly.

"What curriculum changes?" Sokka asked in his dad voice.

"It appears our curriculum was rather outdated with regard to what we taught about the other nations. For example, we now know that Water Tribe people do not eat human flesh. We will no longer teach that they are cannibals in our school system…"

"Yes!" Katara said, joyfully punching the air in celebration. It nearly dislodged her fake pregnancy belly. She had to very quickly readjust to keep it in place. The principal's eyes widened.

"I just get really excited about curriculum changes," Katara explained sheepishly.

The scoldy-eyeballs were back. "I see where your son gets his … exuberant nature from," the principal observed dryly. "Now, back to the lessons. I can offer Kuzon a spot in our Tuesday and Thursday classes after school. They are for beginners."

"Will these classes teach him how to control his fireballs?" Sokka asked.

"Yes. Eventually. But we will focus on breathing and self-control initially. How to maintain a wider stance and such…"

Aang let out such a large sigh. Sokka could almost feel him deflating.

-0-

"It's a good idea of yours, bringing back the firebending lessons," Admiral Buijing said as he laid out the pieces on the map for Azula's father. "Children these days, they're so sullen and insolent and disrespectful. They lack any real firebending discipline—present company excluded, of course," he added with a dignified nod in Azula's direction. "Shame your son never followed her example."

"My son was indolent beyond belief, so I was as hard on him as possible. Now he is competent enough to slay the Avatar. Discipline—that's what children need."

Azula watched as her father idly took credit for Zuko's ideas, now that it suited him. (Everyone conveniently feigned amnesia over who had cancelled the lessons in the first place.)

"Agreed. The older ones have been passably competent, but that last batch of fresh meat you sent me were almost useless, even as a diversion. Some of them barely had the basics down. Compulsory lessons will sort them out..."

She sat silently until she was addressed directly. Azula wasn't making _that _mistake. Father insisted she shadow him today. (He'd ordered her, in front of Zuko, during breakfast. Just to make sure her brother was aware of the deliberate snub. It was unnecessary … _tacky_).

Father liked to explain his plans in grandiose gestures to a room full of respected generals, but he didn't actually like sitting down and coming up with the plans.

That was Azula's job.

She was good at plans. She was useful to her father. She had made herself indispensable.

Buijing had been tasked with securing the Omashu region. He had just returned to the Fire Nation to request even more troops. His usual strategy had proven both unsuccessful and wasteful (in what surprised absolutely no one). While the city had fallen, their casualties had been significant and the wider region still had not been secured.

Too full of rebels hiding like cowards in a complex network of caves, according to Buijing. He blamed the weak will of his men (cantankerous islanders and useless children), and their lack of ferocious firebending for the failure. The foot soldiers were always reluctant to enter the caves. They believed in curses and other such hokum. They really thought the caves were haunted by dead lovers.

"So what if several divisions had entered and were never seen again?" Buijing complained. "That doesn't prove anything! People are so superstitious these days."

Her father joined in harrumphing about superstitious idiots and went off on his favourite rant about how the navy were just using the ocean spirit _as an excuse_.

"I'm glad you're changing the school curriculum," Buijing said. "Let them know the truth about the other nations, not engage in childish fears of monsters under the bed. There are no magical monsters or sinister cannibals or evil ghosts of lovers. It is always just the local villagers playing tricks. Truth and discipline—that is what the army needs!"

"The truth about the Water Tribes is shocking enough. Did you hear that they don't even let their women fight?"

Buijing nodded.

"Now we know that we'll only ever be going up against half the population at most, it certainly sheds a new light on the potential to renew our attack on the Northern Water Tribe after the summer."

She watched silently as her father and Buijing spoke animatedly about attacking the Northern Water Tribe, throwing out a variety of ill-conceived plans. She couldn't help but marvel at the irony. If only Zuko knew that his desire for everyone to know '_the truth'_ would have such disastrous consequences for his soggy peasants, he might have shut his big, dumb mouth for once.

He really needed to be more specific when he wanted people to know _the truth. _The truth was a very slippery creature, in Azula's experience. It was a tool to be used. You had to shape your own version of it, just so.

The truth wasn't a battering ram. It was a chisel.

The meeting adjourned. Azula went to her room and regarded the maps in front of her severely.

There was a knock at the door.

"Enter."

"The scribes have compiled the information you requested." A nervous servant placed the scroll on her desk, bowed with their gaze averted, and scurried away.

Azula looked at the scroll, then glanced back to her maps. She waited until she heard the door click closed before she opened the scroll.

_Away, you mouldy rogue, away!_

_Thou damned luxurious mountain goat,_

_Thou cream-faced loon,_

_Thou art as loathsome as a toad,_

_Your brain is as dry as the remainder of a riceball after a long voyage…_

Azula smirked to herself. She couldn't wait to see how Zuko reacted to being called a luxurious mountain goat.

Azula had noticed that all of her usual threats didn't seem to have the same effect on Zuko as they used to. Father thought fear was the only reliable way, and yet it wasn't working like it should on her brother.

She discovered whenever she threw out an insulting phrase from one of those stupid and sentimental plays Mother liked, Zuko was very disconcerted. Torn between offence and amusement, he didn't seem to know quite how to react. He'd always try and reply with another line from the same play.

Yesterday, they'd spent a long period of time throwing old fashioned insults at each other. It annoyed Azula that Zuko had the last word. Azula wasn't going to trawl through all those soppy stories herself, but she'd had scribes compile a list of the most unusual insults for her. Her victory was assured.

She told herself she was doing it to keep him off balance and uncertain. Uncertainty was good. It was always better to keep your opponent on the back-foot. Better to do the unexpected and unsettle them. That's why she was doing this. Not because she enjoyed squabbling with her brother.

She tucked the scroll in her pocket for now. Father wouldn't like her spending time on frivolous things.

She turned back to her war maps and drew up battle plans.

-0-

"He escaped right from under you? Again?" Kenji, Captain of the Palace Guards, frowned as he looked up from his noodles with a deeply disgruntled look on his face. He had been given the thankless task of making sure Prince Zuko was watched by the guards at all times.

The Firelord claimed it was for his son's safety, but nobody, least of all the prince, believed him. Prince Zuko was becoming exceptionally good at evading the palace guards and turning up in strange places, like medical centres or shonky taverns.

"Well, I don't know if this will dissipate your very strong feelings on the matter, but this time he actually escaped right from _over_ us," Daisuke, the second lieutenant, shifted on the spot. "We think he jumped from the third floor balcony and…"

"Say no more." Kenji looked mournfully down at his noodles before standing to his feet. "Has he come in to make snacks again?" the captain asked Misao, head dumpling chef.

Breaking into the kitchen whenever he 'got snacky' and making food for himself had become a habit of Prince Zuko's and nobody knew what to do about it. They'd caught him twice, but Misao suspected there were many more times. She often found her spices in slightly different places. He mostly broke in at night time. He normally ate with his sister during the day. However, he'd recently started taking lunch in the barbeque restaurants in the docklands with some old sailor.

"Not recently."

"Urgh! Why do we have to play the incredible disappearing prince right in the middle of my lunch!" Kenji complained before abandoning his noodles.

Princess Azula ate alone again at lunchtime, like she had everyday for the three years during her brother's banishment. She seemed momentarily perturbed by the empty place setting opposite her, and the fact that no one was calling her a sour walnut-head over the appetisers and eating all the dumplings. Disappointment flashed in her eyes for a second but was very quickly covered by the chilly expression the princess often wore.

_Shame, _thought Misao. It was little moments like that which reminded Misao that the princess was actually human. She seemed less terrifying when her brother called her a toad-faced gremlin. Having a brother around to squabble with during the last few years could have been the saving of her.

-0-

Authors notes:

incredible and gigantic thanks to the lovely and talented and brilliant Boogum for her amazing beta skills.

Creaky Jee belongs to Muffinlance

Old fashioned insults belong to shakespeare, because in my headcanon, both Zuko and Azula are drama nerds as well as drama llamas!


End file.
